The Signs of the 
Times 

A/haldeman, d.d. 

I* 

PASTOR FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH 
NEW YORK CITY 




SECOND THOUSAND 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES C. COOK 
150 Nassau St. 

1910 



?x& 



Qo 

l 



PREFACE 

Five of the articles in this book, "Jericho Theology,'* 
'The New Religion," "Thinking Above What is 
Written," "The Devil's Righteousness," and "Mental 
Assassination," have been, already, published and cir- 
culated as pamphlets. Tire remaining numbers are 
printed for the first time. 

Each of these articles was, originally, preached- as 
a sermon in the First Baptist Church. They have 
been somewhat changed. The language in which 
they appear was used in preaching them, but the 
sermon form, as far as possible, has been set aside. 
The propositional distinction, the homiletical and 
constructive necessities, have been in great measure, 
kept out of sight. In many cases the narrative 
method, the descriptions and illustrations, legitimate 
enough for the living voice, and suited to a listening 
audience, have been omitted. This is notably so in 
the "Parliament of Nations," which, when delivered 
as a sermon, was embellished with full reference to 
history as corroborative evidence of the truthfulness 
of prophecy, together with descriptions of cities, 
events and persons, and fuller analysis of present day 
movements. 

It seemed proper, however, to omit all this in send- 
ing the discourses out in book form. 

The writer is convinced that the "signs of the 
times" call for a reading and study in this hour as 
never before. Heaven, and earth, and hell — the pro- 
fessing church, the nations and, now and then the 
clanging of nature's forces, bids us realize that we 
are on the threshold where the shifting of events, 
at any moment, may usher in that vast and solemn 
process, whose terminus ad quern is the Coming and 
Kingdom of the Son of God. 

I. M. HALDEMAN. 
New York, November, 1910. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



The Signs of the Times .... 5 


The Faith 33 

Progress of the Devil's Lie ... 63 

Jericho Theology 95 

The New Religion 123 

Thinking Above What is Written . 150 
The Devil's Righteousness ... 176 

Mental Assassination 207 

Present Day Miracles .... 244 

Socialism 275 

Emmanuelism . 310 

The Kingdom of Commerce .... 341 
The Scarlet Woman ..... 364 
The Parliament of Nations . . . 405 
The Zionist Movement .... 428 



THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

"Ye can discern the face of the sky ; but can 
ye not discern the signs of the times ?" — Mat- 
thew 16:3. 

Jesus was at Magdala. He was surrounded 
by a multitude. They were clamoring for 
some signs or evidence that he was the Christ, 
the Messiah. 

He said to them: You can tell by certain 
conditions in the sky whether it is going to be 
clear or stormy, and govern yourselves ac- 
cordingly. Now, there are signs in the times, 
conditions, circumstances and events, foretold 
in your Holy Scriptures, which you ought to 
be able to read as clearly as you read the face 
of the sky. 

The prophets had foretold certain things 
concerning the Christ when He should come. 
They had said he should be of lowly mien ; that 
He would perform many healing wonders; 
that he would speak in parables ; that he would 
be a man of sorrows and acquainted with 
grief; that he would not come with outward 
beauty nor winsome attraction ; that he would 
ride into Jerusalem on a colt, the foal of an 
ass; that he would come in at a definite day 
and date, and that he would present himself 
in the temple as their king. 



6 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

All these things had happened, were hap- 
pening, and were about to happen. The Jews 
were called upon to be witnesses of these things 
and read them aright. They ought to have 
seen that they were the credentials of the 
Christ; that he who fulfilled them before their 
very eyes was none other than Messiah him- 
self. 

They did not so see. They did not read the 
signs. They were blind, and they were blind 
because they had turned away from the book 
that recorded them, and had listened and were 
listening at that very moment to the traditions 
of men rather than to the Word of God. They 
missed their ordained opportunity and, for two 
thousand years, have paid the penalty in an 
agony and tragedy that are terrible to contem- 
plate. There are signs for these days just as 

plainly foretold in Holy Writ, as were the 
signs of those days. 

They have been foretold by the Son of God 
himself and all his holy apostles. They are 
written in the Scriptures ; and yet, the church, 
as a whole, fails to read or note them, is ut- 
terly blind to them, and all the out-reach of 
their tremendous meaning. 

It has been foretold in Scripture that a time 
would come during the absence of the Lord 
when, in spite of the preaching of the gospel 
and the work of the church, the whole world 
would prepare for war, and prepare on such 
a scale as had never been dreamed before. 



THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 7 

I. 

Nation should rise against nation, there should 
be wars and continual rumors of wars. The 
Apostle John, giving the last stroke in the pic- 
ture, testifies that the spirit of war should go 
forth, pervade the whole earth, assembling 
the nations together, and inspiring them to 
prepare themselves as for a last and desperate 
struggle. 

This prophecy is being fulfilled to-day. 

Never since the world began has there been 
such a spectacle — the whole world under arms. 
Wherever there is a nation worthy to be called 
such, that nation is making enormous efforts 
to equip itself for the emergency of war. Eng- 
land, so long content to have a great navy and 
a small volunteer army, is now making a su- 
preme effort to raise that army to an effective 
standard of 500,000 men. France is ready to 
respond in forty-eight hours with 500,000 sol- 
diers, mobilized and fully equipped. Germany 
has under arms and ready to march at a mo- 
ment's notice, 500,000, constituting the most 
perfect fighting machine ever put together. 
Spain has 100,000 veterans with the memory 
of Cuba in their hearts. Italy has ready near- 
ly another half million. Austria a full half 
million, trained, disciplined and magnificently 
furnished. Russia has a million men under 
arms — not merely reserves — she has these be- 
sides — but a million of men in barrack and 
camp, ready to fight, as never before. Japan 
has more than half a million, practically in the 



8 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

field, and a full million of equally disciplined 
reserves behind them, soldiers whose desperate 
^ravery electrified and, almost, appalled the 
world. China is moving everything that she 
may possess an army of 500,000 soldiers equal 
to the most modern demands, and, already, 
has an artillery among the best. As you come 
westward and sweep the circle of the old con- 
tinents again, you find Persia, the Persia 
that Rome never conquered, ready to 
take the field with troops furnished from 
western arsenals and instructed by offi- 
cers from western armies. You will find 
Turkey with 500,000 men; and it is of 
tradition that, when soldiers fight well, it is 
said of them, no matter what nation they may 
be, they fight "like Turks." Greece has an 
army; the Balkans — the political lumber-room 
of Europe — more or less filled with smoking 
firebrands — is crowded with soldiers; while 
Switzerland is a nation of soldiers ready to 
spring from their Alpine heights at the first 
sound of war. Every spring-time and summer 
these nations send out their armies to "ma- 
noeuvre," to fight imaginary battles, carry on 
imaginary campaigns, and always as their im- 
aginary foe, their nearest neighbor. Vast fac- 
tories are built for the making of guns and 
powder, and great arsenals for the storing of 
war material. Germany has one fortress in 
which she has deposited under steel locks and 
bars, guarding it night and day, vast sums in 



THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 9 

gold as the sinews of war ; so that, in the event 
of hostilities, she may be ready to meet every 
demand. So complete is the preparation for 
war throughout the world that the number and 
location of every horse fit for military duty 
are known, every strategic route in the possible 
enemy's country is marked out and mapped, 
every secret road and path described, while the 
nations themselves swarm with one another's 
spies, noting the means of defence and the 
easiest points of attack. Added to all this, the 
armies are no longer mercenary contingents, 
hired as the Persians once hired the Greeks, or 
England once hired the Hessians; not armies 
made up of men who followed it as a trade 
and were open to the highest bidder; the na- 
tions themselves form the armies ; every man 
capable of bearing arms is enrolled. In France 
not even the widow's son is spared, and those 
who by reason of some physical defection can- 
not go to the field are called to occupy posts as 
clerks, as telegraph operators, or any other 
position that would otherwise demand the 
presence of an effective soldier. 

Not only is the armament on land ; it is on 
the sea. 

Ten years ago England had 300 war ships 
and was easily the mistress of the sea. In an 
unwise moment she determined to outdo all 
other nations by constructing vessels of the 
Dreadnaught type. The moment she did this 
she declassed her other ships and threw her- 



10 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

self back in the race for supremacy. Germany 
seized the opportune moment and began con- 
structing ships of equal tonnage, and to-day 
can build them as well and rapidly as England 
herself; so well, in fact, that the number of 
them falls like a darkling shadow across the 
waters of the North Sea; and it is now no 
longer a question whether Great Britain can 
have a navy equal in range and power to any 
other two nations, but whether she can have 
a navy equal to one power, and that one Ger- 
many herself. 

France is awakening from her sleep of self- 
glorification to the fact of her actual maritime 
weakness, and is laying plans for construction 
by which she hopes to overtake her German 
rival. And now the news comes that Austria, 
never a sea power and with practically no sea- 
coast at all, has given a contract for the build- 
ing of seven Dreadnaughts of the super type, 
together with torpedo boats, torpedo boat de- 
stroyers and submarines. Spain has commis- 
sioned England to build her an up-to-date 
navy. Russia, profiting by her disastrous war 
with Japan, is launching a fleet that will be 
equal in power to the best navies of the world ; 
while Japan, night and day is seeking to jus- 
tify the prestige of her war with Russia, and 
anticipating a possible contest with the United 
States for the control of the Pacific, is unceas- 
ingly pushing forward the work of building 
a navy that shall surpass even that with which 



THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 1 1 

Togo astonished the nations of the earth. 

The necessity for a navy has invaded our 
own land. No matter how much political job- 
bery on the one side, and the inexcusable ig- 
norance or indifference of Congress on the 
other, may retard it ; no matter how much the 
worse than foolish talk of the peace advocates 
may hold back the appropriations for the work, 
this country, by the inexorable logic of her 
position as a world power (and under bonds 
to control the Panama Canal in the interest of 
peace) is forced to have, and will have, a bat- 
tle-ship navy second to none in the world. The 
nations of South America are seeking with fe- 
verish haste, each one of them, to build navies 
that are to be reckoned with, Brazil having 
just given orders to construct the largest 
Dreadnaught afloat. 

And thus the armament and preparation for 
war is going on. 

Steadily, the amount of money expended 
upon this preparation is increasing, until three- 
fourths of all the incomes of the nations will 
soon be spent. 

One of the startling things about it all is, 
that this state of affairs comes in after two 
thousand years of Gospel preaching, two thou- 
sand years of human progress, and in the cen- 
tury of, so-called, highest civilization. It is an 
amazing fact that after two thousand years of 
the most representative civilization and culture 
the world has ever known, human governments 



12 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

have no better way of deciding a difference 
than by withdrawing to the battle-field, there 
to blow out each other's brains, to kill, murder, 
burn and destroy, perhaps, all that it has taken 
a century to upbuild and perfect. The start- 
ling thing is, that the the nations that are fore- 
most in this preparation for bloody war are 
the, so-called, "Christian nations" of the earth. 

The preparation for war^ then, is one of the 
signs of the times which the church is specially 
called upon to note and read. 

It has been foretold that during the absence 
of the Lord there would be enormous political 
changes within the countries occupying the 
territorial limits once possessed by the em- 
pire of Rome; and that these changes would 
cause the overthrow of absolutism in govern- 
ment, bring about the uprise of a red democ- 
racy, and the final federation of Western Eu- 
rope and a part of Asia under a common ruler. 

For the last hundred years all the marked 
political changes, constitutional and otherwise, 
have taken place in these states of Europe and 
Asia which once belonged to the Roman Em- 
pire. All the conflict has been on the lines of 
the old Roman Vallum, and the effort, con- 
scious or unconscious, has been to restore the 
outlines of the ancient empire. Monarchy has 
been limited, kings have been held in leash, the 
people have been enfranchised, democracy is 
the ruling power, and a democracy whose flag 
and symbol is becoming more and more each 



THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 13 

day, the red flag, the symbol and sign of so- 
cialism and the rule of man. 

These changes and the increase of the war 
preparation, raise the question as to what will 
happen should these things continue. The 
prime minister of England has said that the 
situation is intensely grave. He says history 
shows that peace can be finally and success- 
fully maintained only when there is one su- 
preme ruling power or nation; that we now 
have eight world-powers, each struggling, in 
one way or another, to be supreme and each 
ready, at a moment's notice, to fight the other. 
Either, he says, there must be general war and 
destruction, or there must be a federation of 
all these governments under one common head. 
As such a federation of the powers of Europe 
and Asia would be the constituting of a unit 
of government within the lines of the old Ro- 
man Empire, the premier of England is, un- 
consciously, echoing the far-reaching prophecy 
of God's Word, which has declared that such 
a federation is coming. The recent sugges- 
tion (and made seriously) that the German 
Emperor should be elected head of ten allied 
world-powers as a general arbiter to keep the 
peace, is the corroborative shadow of coming 
events and anticipative of that prophecy which 
declares that this revived and federated Ro- 
man Empire will be divided among ten allied 
kings or powers, who shall elect over them- 
selves a supreme head as an agreed-upon ar- 
biter. 



14 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

It has been foretold that during the ab- 
sence of the Christ, the church would repudiate 
sound doctrine; that teachers would be ex- 
alted in the church who would deny the faith 
once for all delivered to the saints, and turn 
the people away from the truth. 

That time is upon us now. 

Men stand in our pulpits who deny every fun- 
damental doctrine. Every day three hundred 
thousand students in our colleges and institu- 
tions of learning are taught the unsacredness 
of sacred things. A leading professor in a 
college who is still a professed minister of 
Christ, scouts the idea that God wrote the law 
on tables of stone and, with an attempt at wit- 
ticism, declared that God never was a stone- 
mason at all. In our theological colleges min- 
isters of Christ deny the virgin birth, the sac- 
rificial death of the cross, while the doctrine 
of the literal resurrection of the body is 
laughed out of court. 

To-day there is a noisy, if not a strong, body 
of men in the church who, in the name of ad- 
vanced scholarship, are seeking to set the 
church with its back to the hereafter, to every- 
thing supernatural, and to make it a merely 
social, ethical and time factor. 

Side by side with this doctrinal down-grade, 
it was foretold that the church, professed 
Christians, should be "lovers of pleasures more 
than lovers of God," and that they should 
have "a form of godliness, but denying the 
power thereof." 



THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 15 

The prophecy finds its realization in the fact 
that places of public amusement find their 
support largely, if not mainly, from professed 
Christians; so largely, indeed, that when the 
"Lenten" season comes round, these places 
are forced, during the forty days in which such 
Christians suspend their campaign of world- 
liness, to cater to them, in some instances, by 
substituting for the theatrical or operatic per- 
formance, lectures, readings or plays that have 
in them some fancied approach to Christian 
maxims and principles. Indeed, were it not 
for the Christian public, it may well be doubted 
whether the amusement season could be main- 
tained at all, the richest and most liberal pa- 
trons being oftentimes the leading supporters 
of the church. In exact proportion as spirit- 
uality declines, ritualism increases. What the 
church lacks in power it makes up in form; 
and of many Christians and churches concern- 
ing their attitude to the Holy Ghost, who is 
the alone power of religion, it might not be 
inaptly said, as it is written of certain pro- 
fessed Christians in the days of the apostles, 
that they "have not so much as heard whether 
there be any Holy Ghost." 

The doctrinal and spiritual departure of the 
church, therefore, is a sign of the times, ful- 
filled and fulfilling. 

It was foretold that during the absence of 
the Lord and, especially, as the Christian age 
should draw to its close, many false teachers 



16 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

would come in the name of Christ, in his name 
do wonderful works, and deceive many. 

Christian Science is one of them. 

Christian Science is one of the most subtle 
and disastrous deceptions that ever entered 
the world. It comes in the name of Christ, 
quotes the Bible, and seems to hold every doc- 
trine of the Christian faith. It seems to do so, 
but, upon examination it will be found, instead, 
to deny every fundamental doctrine. 

It denies the personality of God. It denies 
that Jesus was the Christ. It denies that he 
died for the salvation of men. It denies that 
His blood, when shed upon the cross, was of 
any more value than when flowing in his veins 
in daily life, and thus, it denies the scriptural 
doctrine that, "without shedding of blood there 
is no remission." It denies that any one is 
lost, or that any one needs to be saved outside 
of the saving principle inherent in each in- 
dividual life. It denies the existence of sin; 
no one has ever committed sin; no one com- 
mits it to-day; no one will ever commit it. 
There is no need of repentance for sin; no 
need of looking back and being sorry. Sin 
does not exist and never has existed. There 
is nothing therefore of which to repent. All 
that is required is to recognize the non-exist- 
ence of sin, and he who, in the eyes of the 
world and before every court of justice has 
been declared a sinner and a criminal, is in- 
stantly free, standing in his original and un- 
changed holiness. 



THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 17 

Christian Science denies the fact of death. 
No one ever died. The grave does not contain 
a single corrupting corpse. The concept of 
death is the delusion of false and mortal mind. 
There is no death, for there is no sickness. 
Disease, sickness, pain and death are imag- 
inary, they (exist?) only in the false and un- 
real mind of man. Repudiate them, deny 
them; they do not exist. He who has tuber- 
culosis, or typhoid fever, or an inward cancer, 
need call in no physician; let him recognize 
that sickness, like sin, is a lie, and he shall be 
delivered and be wholly well. Sin, sickness 
and death, do not exist because there is no 
matter. Nothing we see is real. The tree, the 
flower, the mountain, the sea, the round earth, 
the whole wide universe, these are the mere 
creations of the mind, and no more real and 
existent, than our own deluded thoughts. Our 
very body is a delusion and a snare. The way 
to largest and fullest life is to recognize that 
these so-called bodies do not exist at all. We 
are all spirit, spirit is God, God is not an 
eternal person, but an eternal principle of good. 
We are all good because we are all spirit and 
are equal to God. We have existed as such 
from the beginning. None of us has ever been 
born. No woman ever gave birth to a child 
and no man has the right to be called a father ; 
what is called material existence is no more 
real than imagined sin, sickness, pain and 
death. There is no personal God, and there 



18 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

is no personal Christ. Christ is simply a spir- 
itual idea. Christian Science is that idea, and 
Christian Science is the Coming of Christ. 
Christ will never come a second time in out- 
ward and personal glory as this same Jesus 
who was taken up into heaven, and declared 
so to be by the angels. Jesus was an idea, 
merged at last into the principle of Christ. 
Jesus has ceased to exist; He never was real 
except to the hallucination of the error-smitten 
disciples. *The only Coming of Christ that 
the world will know about is the coming of 
Christian Science. Christian Science denies 
the infallibility of the Bible. The Bible, Chris- 
tian Science says, is full of error, full of fables 
and myths, and written by men under the dark 
error that matter exists. Christian Science, 
in short, denies, not only the Bible as the fully 
inspired Word of God; it denies the Father 
and the Son and thus fulfills the inspired por- 
trait of the Antichrist, as it is written : 

"Who is a liar, but he that denieth that 
Jesus is the Christ. He is antichrist, that de- 
nieth the Father and the Son."— John 2 :22. 

Christian Science is the shadow of the Anti- 
christ, his forerunner and herald, and is, in 
principle, that science of which the Apostle 
speaks when he says : "Science falsely so 
called."— 1 Timothy 6 :20. 

Here is a false teacher coming in the name 
of Christ, and with such power that, if it 
were possible, it might deceive the very elect 



THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 19 

Another false teacher coming in the name 
of Christ, using his very name and title is, 

Emmanuelism. 

Emmanuelism is an effort to lead Christian 
ministers into the formation of a clerical clinic. 
It is an effort to turn the ambassadors of 
Christ into a band of hypnotists. It is a move- 
ment which, in its final analysis, means the re- 
pudiation of the Bible as a book fully inspired 
of God. Emmanuelism does not believe in the 
infallibility of the Bible. It believes that much 
of it was written by men who were governed 
by the error and fables of the time. It denies 
that there are such things as demons or un- 
clean spirits, or that Christ ever cast them out. 
It accepts the fact that it is so recorded, and 
that Christ himself taught that He cast them 
out, but in view of this it leaves us the choice 
of one of two propositions : either Christ him- 
self was ignorant of the truth and imposed 
upon by the credulity of the hour; or, the 
record is the exaggerated and idealized con- 
cept of enthusiastic disciples who, themselves, 
were carried away by their own superstition, 
and who blindly imagined in Jesus the super- 
naturalism they continually sought. 

Emmanuelism would find in a man, not only 
all the resources of physical, but spiritual 
health. It is an attempt to turn man in upon 
himself, and by awakening his sub-conscious 
mind, or by allowing it to free itself from the 
imposition of the surface mind, assert itself 



20 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

in its native purity and health, thus teaching 
man that his salvation lies wholly within him- 
self. 

Emmanuelism is a subtle handmaid of 
Christian Science, even though it be at pains 
to deny it, and, like Christian Science, be- 
cause it professes bodily cures, appeals to 
those who are more ready, always, to walk by 
sight than faith, by natural feeling rather 
than the quickening of the Spirit. 

A sign of the times is Emmanuelism — a 
sign that the Devil is at work, as foretold, not 
with hoofs and horns, but as an angel of light ; 
a sign that the time of the end is at hand when 
the air will be filled with "new" thought, and 
deeds shall be done that shall lead away and 
deceive the "many." 

It has been foretold that, preceding the sec- 
ond advent of Christ, there should arise a pe- 
culiar and special class distinctively called 
"rich men"; that these would accumulate 
wealth in their hands to such a degree that the 
great laboring class would rise in bitterness 
against them. 

The sign is here ! 

Where once a millionaire was an object of 
curiosity by reason of his exception, now mil- 
lionaires may be counted by the thousands in 
this country, and the multi-millionaire is a 
common fact. So immensely has wealth been 
gathered into the hands of the comparatively 
few, that the lands and resources of the nation 



THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 21 

are practically at their mercy. They form 
themselves into trusts and syndicates. They 
control the business and commerce of the 
world. They establish the schedule of prices. 
They mould legislation and are behind the 
courts of justice. Each day they are threaten- 
ing, not only the privileges of individual men, 
but the righteousness and the integrity of the 
earth. Grasping after more, never content, 
and determined to rule, their wealth is a min- 
ister to corruption, an inspiration to official 
dishonesty, and a menace to the peace and 
comfort of society. 

The Word of God tells us that in response 
to this condition of congested wealth and the 
power it makes and accumulates for itself, 
there would be the deep unrest and turbulent 
uprising of the people. The Apostle James 
tells us in language that might well have been 
written to-day, that this exaltation of the capi- 
talist and the bitterness of the laborer will 
eventuate in wild commotion, in the clash of 
class and mass, and in the destruction and mis- 
ery of those who shall have gathered gain and 
are called "the rich." 

He says: 

"Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl 
for your miseries that shall come upon you. 

"Your riches are corrupted, and your gar- 
ments are moth eaten. 

"Your gold and silver are cankered ; and the 
rust of them shall be a witness against you, 



22 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye 
have heaped treasure together for the last 
days. * * * Ye have lived in pleasure on 
the earth, and been wanton [wanton in the 
display of luxury, while multitudes starved] : 
yc have nourished your hearts as in a day of 
slaughter." — James 5:1-3, 5. 

The Word of God foretells that the people 
will break loose like the raging waves of the 
sea; breaking over old landmarks and rising 
in their strength, carrying everywhere disaster 
and dismay, they will seek to overturn and 
destroy all established things. 

Surely that movement is here. 

To-day there are between thirty and forty 
millions of socialists, who are determined, in 
final consent, to break down, in one fashion or 
another, the present order of society. They 
look upon property as a crime and the landed 
proprietor as a robber. They consider the man 
of wealth as, in the French Revolution the 
mob looked upon the titled lord with his wide 
domain and privileges of birth, a tyrant, an 
usurper, an excrescence, and an imposition no 
longer to be tolerated. 

Socialists constitute an all-embracing broth- 
erhood. They repudiate the idea of nation- 
ality and patriotism. Nationality to them is 
simply the agency and instrumentality for the 
few, the subsidized implement of wealth, the 
bludgeon with which the individual is to be 
smitten to the ground that the few may con- 



THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 23 

tinue to lord it over him. The army, to them, 
is simply the ultimate instrument by which the 
rich few maintain their tyranny over the many. 
In making appeals to patriotism and love of 
country, they seek to hoodwink the crowd, 
ready to turn thousands of their common kind 
into food for powder that they may themselves 
remain secure and keep their usurped power. 

So tremendous has been this propaganda 
against nationality and patriotism, so wide- 
spread has the poison been distilled into the 
souls of men in the various armies, that it is 
to-day a serious question whether thousands 
would not, on the eve of battle, throw down 
their arms, rather than fight each other; or, 
united as brothers in a common cause, turn 
upon their respective chiefs. 

Socialism is a flood tide rising steadily and 
invading every walk of life, and each breeze 
that sweeps across the earth carries with it the 
ominous roaring of the rising tide. 

Another sign has the Word of God set be- 
fore men and bade them read. That sign is 
the foretold revival of the Roman Church. 

In the vision of the scarlet-clad woman, car- 
ried by the ten-horned beast of Revelation, 
God has symbolically announced that this 
church should again ascend to temporal as 
well as ecclesiastical power. 

That revival is already patent. 

It ought to be tremendously manifest to the 
most casual observer. It is numerically the 



24 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

largest and strongest religious body in this 
country. Out of the thirty-four or thirty-five 
millions of enrolled church members, fully 
one-half, if not more, are to be found in the 
Roman Catholic Church, and the number is in- 
creasing every day. The percentage of its in- 
crease is more rapid than that of the nation 
itself; and the advance in every direction of 
authority and power is phenomenal. 

While Protestantism is broken up into all 
sorts of sects, and fragments of sects, filled 
with the spirit of unbelief, of rationalism, of 
scientific antagonism and downright infidel- 
ity, the Roman Church is a unit in doctrine 
and practice. 

To-day if men seek for intellectual and spir- 
itual rest, they cannot find it in the Protestant 
Church. There, every man has a psalm, every 
man has a doctrine, and the only thing sure 
in the leaders of the sects, the only thing about 
which they have not the slightest doubt is, that 
the leader of the other sect is wrong. 

What is taught to-day in a Catholic Church 
in Rome, is taught in a Catholic Church in 
London, Paris, New York, and the islands of 
the sea. It is a universal church with a unit 
of creed and faith, and offers to the man who 
wants a settled religious belief, a solidarity of 
doctrine, and an imperial assertion of authority 
to be found nowhere else. Its unbroken his- 
toricy, its splendid ritual, its wealth, and the 
genius which guides it, enables it more and 



THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 25 

more to appeal to the multitudes, and that, in 
exact proportion as Protestantism continues 
its self -division and daily surrender. 

There is another sign of the times. 

That marked and distinctive sign is, 

The revival of Judaism. 

The Word of God has foretold that the 
spirit of nationality in Israel so long dormant, 
would awaken and revive; that with it there 
would be a widespread movement to return to 
Palestine; that there would be a turning of 
the face towards Zion, as it is written: 

"They shall ask their way to Zion with their 
faces thitherward." — Jeremiah 50:5. 

That movement has begun. 

It has taken the name of the "Zionist Move- 
ment," it is called "Zionism." All over the 
earth Zionist societies have been formed, bodies 
have been legally incorporated, and vast sums 
of money subscribed. Children are being 
taught that the day of Israel is at hand, and 
are speeding the ancient word, "Zion," from 
lip to lip. 

It would take a volume to tell all that the 
sons of Judah have done in the last hundred 
years, to record the advance they have made as 
factors in the history of the world. To give 
the names of those who stand forth as the 
representatives of human genius and the prog- 
ress of civilization; who are the masters in 
art, in literature, and science; who are the 
composers of the world's oratorios, the com- 



26 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

posers of our music, the authors of drama and 
the representatives of histrionic ability, the 
occupants of the leading professorial chairs 
in the leading universities; in short, the lead- 
ing scholars of the world and those who thirst 
for knowledge and seek it at any cost and, 
at the same time, to attempt to give the names 
of those who are factors in business and con- 
trollers in finance, would be to give an in- 
terminable list of names, and every name — 
that of a Jew. They are to-day universal fac- 
tors in a world where society each hour be- 
comes more complex ; and this, all this, a wit- 
ness of the immense and immeasurable vital- 
ity of the Jew ; it is this vitality that is behind 
the movement that is called Zionism. 

Already thousands of the medium class have 
returned to the land of their fathers. The 
land, as foretold by Jeremiah, is being bought 
and sold at the very gates of Jerusalem. The 
Jew is already the pre-eminent factor in the 
once holy city. He controls its business and 
is the present guaranty of its prosperity. His 
synagogues are rising within the shadow of 
the Mahommedan mosques. His lamenta- 
tions for the city of the ancient splendors, and 
his prayer for the restoration of the former 
glory, and the swift descent of an avenging 
Messiah, resound every Friday beneath the 
moss covered stones of Solomon's wall, where 
thousands turn their faces and weep as they 
contemplate the past, reciting the penitential 



THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES ll 

psalms, and whose same tear-wet faces shine 
as they sing of the day v/hen Zion shall be as 
a garden planted of the Lord, and when the 
holy hill of the great solemnities shall be the 
place for the soles of the feet of him who is 
their promised king. 

The Turkish government has taken off the 
ban, and now invites the Jew to become a par- 
ticipant citizen in the covenant land. 

The people are returning according to the 
prophetic Word that (and they do not know 
it, they would not believe it though an angel 
from heaven told them) they are returning 
there that they may endure the last and most 
terrible persecution of their race, and then 
(and this is their hope) that they may greet 
Messiah himself when he comes, meeting him 
as they will with the cry, "Lo, this is our God ; 
we have waited for Him." Isaiah 25 :9 ; but, 
in that very cry repudiating the Gospel which 
they have disdained to hear through all the 
ages; saying, "Lo this is our God," meaning 
thereby that this is the Messiah for whom 
they always have been waiting, not the cruci- 
fied Messiah offered them by the Gentiles — 
nay — this is the Christ they have sought, the 
Christ of glory and triumphant power. So 
will they hail him, but he will show them his 
hands and his feet with the stigmata of the 
cross, and abashed, overwhelmed they will 
cry out, "What are these wounds in thine 
hands?" Then he shall answer, "Those with 



28 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

which I was wounded in the house of my 
friends." Zechariah. 12:6. Then will they 
look upon him as the one whom they pierced 
and be in mourning and repentant lamenta- 
tion concerning him, as it is written: "And 
they shall look upon me whom they have 
pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one 
mourneth for his only son, and shall be in 
bitterness for him, as one is in bitterness for 
his first born." Zechariah. 12:10. It is of 
this time that the Apostle John writes. 

"Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every 
eye shall see him: and all kindreds [tribes] 
of the earth [the land] shall wail because of 
him." Revelation, 1 : 7. 

This sign of Israel's return is confronting 
the world and crying aloud to an unheeding 
church. 

There is yet a climacteric sign of the times. 

A sign set forth as the witness of the clos- 
ing hours of the age and as bringing into view 
the threshold over which the Son of God shall 
surely come to his own. 

That sign is composite — earthquakes in di- 
vers places (this is the testimony of the Lord 
himself), pestilence and famine, the waves of 
the sea roaring, tidal waves sweeping the land 
and, from above, the heavens adding their 
phenomena to the emphasis of terror. 

Within the last fifty years earthquakes have 
been of unusual frequency, increasing at an 
amazing ratio, till scarce a day passes that the 



THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 29 

seismograph does not record the quivering of 
the earth as though she strained and moanecl 
and was in travail pain to be delivered of that 
new earth wherein righteousness shall dwell. 
Only recently, and without a moment's warn- 
ing, the earth yawned and historic towns in 
Italy were swept with their thousands into 
the awful gulf; in one night San Francisco 
was levelled to the ground. 

And pestilence has walked abroad. The 
dreaded plague of the East the last ten years 
has been travelling slowly but steadily west- 
ward. This year it is at St. Petersburg, in 
Russia, and the first touch of its clammy fin- 
gers has been felt in Italy. It has moved 
eastward at the same time and the breath of 
it has been breathed upon our most western 
shore. 

Famine has kept pace with earthquake and 
pestilence as one of the ordained trinity. In 
India thousands have been starved unto death 
and we have seen photographs of the so-called 
living, pictures of men and women and of chil- 
dren, whose bones spoke through their flesh. 
With increasing violence the heavens have 
flung their meteors upon the earth. The wild 
tempests have redoubled their fury. Now and 
again the heat of the summer's sun has smit- 
ten the cities till the gong of the hurrying am- 
bulance has echoed from street to street. The 
icy blasts of winter have swept in upon the 
desolated country. Cyclones have risen sud- 



30 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

denly with the south wind, a lurid, ominous 
cloud sailing before them like a monstrous 
winged presage of woe ; there has been a crash 
of swirling thunders, and in an instant towns, 
and cities have been obliterated from the map. 
The waves of the sea break loose as at Gal- 
veston ; or the rivers overflow as in China ; or 
rise and imperil the fancied security of such 
an inland city as Paris; or the sea again as- 
serts its majesty and thousands on thousands 
are whelmed to their death in the islands of 
Japan. Everywhere nature seems in arms 
against the earth, as though mighty giants 
filled with commission of judicial wrath were 
seeking to smite man from the face of it and 
teach him his littleness and decay, smothering 
his cries of boasting beneath the onslaughts 
of their power. 

These are some of the signs of the times. 

What do they mean? 

Their meaning is clear enough to him who 
cares to read. 

These things, the widespread preparation 
for war, the down-grade in the Protestant 
Church, the up-grade in the Roman Church, 
the accumulation of wealth in the hands of 
the few, the increase of knowledge, the run- 
ning to and fro — rapid transit and rapid 
flight — the multiplication of human inventions, 
the disorganization of society, the uprise of 
mobocracy, the expanding cry that the voice 
of the people is the voice of God, the return 



THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 31 

of the Jew to his own land, the stealthy but 
steady strides of pestilence and the sudden 
grip of famine, the shivering earth, quivering 
and breaking asunder, the waves of the sea 
roaring, the menacing heavens, loosened 
winds and multiplying storms, the outbreak of 
floods, the burning, scorching heat of the sun, 
and mens' hearts failing them for fear — every- 
where heart failure mixed with bold boasting 
and unconcealed defiance of God — what are 
these but the very signs pictured in the Word 
of God as antedating the advent of the Christ ? 
In every note of war, in every tramp of 
armed men, in every political change, whether 
in Europe or in Asia, in every bold denial of 
the Word of God, in the increase of knowledge 
and with it the increase of unbelief, in the 
false faiths coming in the name of Christ, in 
the extended wealth of the few and the in- 
creasing domination of commerce controlled 
by the few, in the rising of the multitude and 
the chorus of lawlessness which they sing, in 
the retreat of Protestantism and the advance 
of Romanism, in the homeward-bound of the 
Jew, in the breath of pestilence and the pinch 
of famine, in the uncertain earth and the 
frowning sky — read the plain writing of these 
"perilous times/' which an Apostle said should 
come; read the plain writing that the age of 
Gospel grace is drawing to a close; that the 
Antichrist is at hand; that the days of the 
Antichrist are casting forth their shadow ; and 



32 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

that the hour is ripe for that moment when 
the Lord shall descend and gather His church 
to Himself, that He may take her out of the 
way of those judgments with which He will 
sweep the earth clean, and then bring her back 
with Him to reign in His glory here. 

The signs of the times tell us that the Com- 
ing of the Lord draweth nigh ; that the judge 
standeth at the door, and bid us be ready — 
should the Bridegroom come. 



THE FAITH 

ONCE FOR ALL DELIVERED TO THE SAINTS. 

"Earnestly contend for the faith once (for 
all) delivered to the saints." Jude. 3 

This is called an age of progress. 

It is a time when old ideas are being set 
aside and new ones brought in. It is a time 
when the hammer of the iconoclast is break- 
ing to pieces many a heretofore cherished 
image. 

The spirit of modern progress claims to 
have wide vision and immense forecast. It 
talks in large terms. The word most fre- 
quently heard is the word "world," and used 
in an adjective sense. We hear of world 
forces, world powers, world parliaments, 
world congresses, world movements. 

The modern spirit repudiates the narrow and 
the sectarian. Its outlook is over and above 
all party lines. It demands absolute mental 
and moral freedom. Its standard is the 
scientific. Science must account for all things. 
Whatever cannot be accounted for by science, 
is to be regarded as forming a field for future 
experiment in which science, sooner or later, 
shall find the answer and give the demonstra- 
tion. It has no belief in the supernatural. 
There is nothing above nature. Nature may 



34 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

be higher or lower, but nature is everywhere 
governed by the same laws. It only requires 
time to know these laws and apply them. Evo- 
lution is the one thing which unlocks the past, 
explains the present, and gives prophecies of 
the future. Whatever does not go along with 
the modern concept in its breadth of view, 
its sense of utility and reason, its practical 
relation to the changing mood and need of 
the times, must be set aside as excuseless ob- 
struction, as criminal hindrance to the onward 
and upward march of humanity. The rallying 
cry is, "Keep up with the times — get together 
— organize, bring out and develop the latent 
forces in man." In short, the spirit of modern 
progress signifies the exaltation of the natural 
and material man as supreme. Whatever is 
to be done in this world worth doing, is to 
be done by him, in dependence on his own re- 
sources, and as a result of his skill in combina- 
tion, organization and self reliance. 

The spirit of modernism and naturalism 
has entered the church. In entering the church 
it finds itself face to face with an immense 
deposit of old doctrine bequeathed from the 
New Testament Church. It finds such doc- 
trine as the fiat creation of the world and 
man, original sin, total depravity, redemption 
by blood, regeneration through thie Spirit, 
salvation by faith, the resurrection of the body, 
the Second Coming of Christ, the felicity of 
heaven and the sorrows of hell. When it 



THE FAITH 35 

enters the confines of the New Testament 
Church, if finds written over its doors these 
words : "Not by might, nor by power, but by 
my spirit, saith the Lord." As modern pro- 
gress forces its way into the church it finds 
carved above its altars in letters of light, the 
words: "Ye see your calling, brethren, how 
not many wise men after the flesh, not many 
mighty, not many noble are called. But God 
hath chosen the foolish things of the world 
to confound the wise and God hath chosen 
the weak things of the world, and things which 
are despised hath God chosen, yea and things 
which are not, to bring to naught things that 
are, that no flesh should glory in his presence." 
All this means in simple terms that man is 
a lost, a ruined, and a helpless sinner, and' 
that God alone can save him. It means that 
the resources and power of the church of 4 
Christ are to be found exclusively in the 
Spirit of God. It means that in the work of 
the church, God does not depend in final 
analysis upon the wisdom, the strength, or the 
genius of man; neither upon his intelligence 
or moral concept; nor upon his latest sug- 
gested "methods." In fact, it means the set- 
ting aside of the natural man, and is the decla- 
ration that the church of Jesus Christ, if it is 
anything at all in the world, is divine, is super- 
natural, and must be carried on to success 
through revealed concepts and ordained and 
fixed methods. 



36 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

Modern progress when it enters the church 
finds all this a hindrance to its ideas of suc- 
cess. It finds the doctrine of the fall of man 
and his helpless state by nature, the need of 
a second birth by the interfering power of 
God, a stumbling block to, and an arraign- 
ment of, the twentieth century doctrine of 
the brotherhood of man. It finds the doc- 
trine that the church must depend exclusively 
upon the Spirit of God, impracticable. It 
finds the doctrine that God does not depend' 
on human wisdom and genius, an absolute 
discouragement and a cruel blow to human 
culture and human development. It finds the 
doctrine that Christ is coming a second time, 
and might come any time, a menace and an 
absolute hindrance to multiplied moral and 
social plans for the bettering of the world; 
and because these doctrines and methods are 
a hindrance to twentieth century ideas, the 
twentieth century idea, the spirit of modern 
progress, demands that the old concepts and 
methods shall be modified, or set aside com- 
pletely, and the church made to conform to the 
age in which we now live. It demands that 
the church shall come down out of the air'; 
that it shall quit star gazing and begin to 
realize that it dwells fast and hard upon the 
ground ; that it shall pay less attention to man's 
future, and more to his present; less atten- 
tion to eternity, and more to time; that it 
shall be less elaborate about doctrine, and 



THE FAITH 37 

more insistent about deeds. It demands that 
the church shall get rid both of theological 
rubbish and antiquated and useless methods; 
that it shall carry on its work henceforth on 
an up-to-date and business-like basis. 

There are churches which have responded 
to this twentieth century demand. They have 
organized themselves on the most approved 
business and practical basis. There are 
churches in which you can get preaching, find 
a place for prayer and, side by side with it, 
a place for advanced athletics. Churches in 
which there are swimming pools as well as 
baptisteries, employment bureaus and help 
agencies. Churches that are divided into vast 
and graded departments. There are churches, 
indeed, in which the main building is rented 
out for stores and offices, for the buying and 
the selling of things — rooms and offices for the 
money changers and their tables. There is 
an auditorium for church services during the 
Lord's D'ay — and lectures, "refined entertain- 
ments," "humorous" and "grave," during 
the week. Rooms for committees and the vari- 
ous "secular" organizations of the church. In 
the rental from the business branches, the 
church secures a steady income. Through its 
many and varied humanitarian organizations, 
it secures contingents for its congregations. 
There is everything that can be desired in 
some of these "institutional" churches, from 
a sermon to a sandwich, from theology to 
theatre. 



38 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

And this is not all. Churches have not only 
placed themselves on a basis which is business- 
like, they have set aside every doctrine they 
could not modify, and modified every doctrine 
they have kept, to suit the need and the spirit 
of the times. There are men in the pulpit who 
teach that the Bible is more human than 
divine. Its history and science are not to be 
accepted seriously. The doctrines, specially 
those which touch the question of sin, redemp- 
tion and eternity, are to be translated wholly 
by modern thought. Whatever is averse to 
the idea of evolution, is to be expurgated. If 
the Bible is to be kept at all, it must be kept 
as the hand book of moral maxims and read 
in the light of man's larger knowledge. It 
is to be considered as having originated in 
the infancy of the human mind, having 
subserved a great purpose while man was still 
under the influence of feeling and sentiment 
rather than the strong facts of knowledge and 
investigation. There are those who talk swag- 
geringly about the need of big men in the 
pulpit, exalt human genius, and swear by the 
scientific spirit; and there are churches that 
love to have it so. In short, the drift of the 
hour in the professing church is, more and 
more, to conform to the times both in doc- 
trine and methods. 

And what then ? 

Well! when you come to make a cold and 
critical analysis of the church that is to-day 



THE FAITH 39 

conforming to the twentieth century concept, 
you will find that it is ethical and not spiritual. 
Its spirituality never gets beyond a refined 
ethics. It is economic, and not organic. It 
is reformative, and not regenerative. It is 
humanitarian, and not divine. Its rallying cry 
is sociology, and not theology. Its aim is to 
deliver men, not from the dangers of the 
future, but the vices of the present. Its ob- 
ject is benevolence, not holiness. It seeks to 
compete with great humanitarian organiza- 
tions. It would compete with the masonic 
lodge, the odd fellows lodge, the labor unions, 
the socialist club. It is fast becoming a society 
for competitive morality, and not the channel 
for declarative truth. It seeks to cultivate the 
original man and make this world a better 
and more attractive place to live in, and stay 
in. In fact, it is occupied with temporal, 
rather than eternal, affairs. And thus the 
church is endeavoring to conform to the 
twentieth century spirit — to its doctrines and 
methods. 

And yet — in spite of all this effort to con- 
form, whether it be in the diminution of 
doctrine, or the increase of organization; in 
spite of theological institutions, schools and 
colleges; in spite of ethical and benevolent 
schemes ; in spite of organization after organi- 
zation until, in some instances, the church it- 
self has become the servant and slave of any 
one of its minor societies, and the minister only 



40 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

one of the many equally important and world 
inspired functionaries ; in spite of bureaus and 
departments; in spite of the repudiation of 
every doctrine that is not pleasing to the 
natural mind, the professed church, as a moral 
and social force, is steadily going behind; it 
is losing its grip on the multitude. This is 
evidenced by its failure to appeal to the en- 
thusiasm in men. That it does fail to awaken 
enthusiasm, is shown by the decreasing num- 
ber of young men, keen, alert, who are willing 
to devote themselves to the Christian ministry. 
Everywhere the church is suffering from a 
paucity of younger preachers. The lack of 
enthusiasm is shown in the falling off of liberal 
contributions, in the absence of the spirit of 
cheerful giving. The contribution of the aver- 
age church member to missions, home or for- 
eign, and the support of the local church, is 
so small that one hesitates to put the figures 
in print. If sentiment, love and devotion, are 
to be measured by liberality, then the modern 
church is not creating these sentiments. 

The weakness of the church is seen in the 
increase of irreligiousness and infidelity in the 
community. No matter though the preacher 
accommodate his doctrine to the latest scientific 
find ; no matter though he break down all the 
old standards and proclaim himself a liberal 
of liberals, even though the crowd may come 
for a while and applaud, they go away con- 
firmed in their infidelity, laughing at the little 



THE FAITH 41 

sop of modified doctrine which the preacher 
tries to give them. As for the individual 
church member, he is held to the line of moral 
living, not because he is a member of church, 
not because its doctrines hold and secure him, 
but because it is a safe business and social 
proposition; because the law of utilitarianism 
to-day demands these things irrespective of 
Christianity. Thus in spite of its repu- 
diation of the old faith, and its multiplied or- 
ganizations, the twentieth century church is 
losing its grip. 

The secret of all this is plain enough except 
to the wilfully blind. 

The church has come down from the high 
plane of the supernatural to the low ground of 
the natural. 

On the ground of the natural the church 
has no chance at all. What chance, for ex- 
ample, has the church on mere natural grounds 
alongside of a masonic lodge, an odd fellow's 
society, a labor union, a social, or benevolent 
organization? What chance has a church 
which professes to stand for regeneration as 
the only ground on which a man can call God 
his Father, and his fellow man his brother? 
What chance has such a church with an organi- 
zation which will accept as a brother, Jew or 
Gentile, Trinitarian or Unitarian; those who 
believe in the God of the Bible and those who 
do not. In respect to brotherhood the church 
has no chance at all, unless it drop the doc- 



42 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

trine of regeneration by the Spirit, as well as 
redemption by blood. But suppose it does 
drop those doctrines, gives them up, or modi- 
fies them so that it means surrender, what 
then ? Clearly, it no longer stands for what it 
professes and, in the long run, men will de- 
spise it as the meanest of all things on earth — 
that which professes one thing and acts an- 
other. 

The secret of the church's failure lies in the 
fact that it no longer has a message from God. 

The church to-day, in the hands of some 
of its representative ministers and teachers, is 
denying that we have a distinct and unquali- 
fied revelation from God. How can the Bible 
be a revelation from God when, if the teach- 
ing of these men be true, the Bible is full of 
fictions and fables, full of questionable mor- 
ality? Such a book is not from God — it is 
from man, and man only. Instead of a mes- 
sage from God the church is giving a message 
from men, scientific men, philosophizing men, 
good men they may be — but only men. In- 
stead of a message about heaven, it is a mes- 
sage about the world. Instead of the affairs 
of God, it is the progress of man. Do men 
want to come to church to hear such a mes- 
sage as that ? Do men want to come to church 
to hear about sociology, criminology, peno- 
logy, politics, science and philosophy? Nay, 
when men come to church they want to hear 
about God and eternity ; whether there is such 



THE FAITH 43 

a thing; whether behind the vail of death 
there is a level stretch of sunshine and glad 
welcoming; or, whether the night shuts down 
close and tight, sealed with silence forever. 
They want, when they come to church, to 
hear something that will convince them that 
God is, that he thinks upon them, and desires 
to do them good. They want, when they 
come to church, to hear about something 
that will help them to live every day and 
hope for every to-morrow. They want to know 
what the will of God concerning them may be, 
and how they may perform that will. It is 
not the noise of the earthly city and the stifling 
dust of it, they want to hear and breathe — 
they want to breathe the pure air of the heav- 
enly city, and hear some notes of its unfail- 
ing harmonies. A church that is taken up with 
everything under heaven but heaven — with 
every sort of message, but a message direct 
from God and about God, has lost its message 
to men. When a church has lost its message 
from God to men, it has ceased to have the 
right to give any message at all. 

God set the church up in this world that it 
might deliver his message to men, inviting 
them to hear his Word and enter, by faith, 
into living union with his Son. God set the 
church up that it might speak, not to nations, 
but to "every creature" ; that it might bring 
salvation, not to society, but to the individual 
in society. The church is not giving that mes- 



44 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

sage. It has forgotten that "the power of 
God" in this age is not through temperance 
and reform societies, not through political pur- 
gation and legislative agitation, but that Gos- 
pel wherein righteousness is revealed from 
faith to faith; that Gospel which tells us that 
the nexus between man's need of righteousness 
and God's readiness to supply it, is faith in that 
crucified and risen Son of God whom it pro- 
claims as the righteouness of God unto, and 
upon, every one that believeth. 

A further secret of the church's weakness lies 
in the fact that it does not speak with authority. 

^This is particularly seen in the Protestant 
division of the professing church. Here every 
man has a psalm and every man a doctrine. 
The latest theological fad is, that in true re- 
ligion there is no final authority. For Pro- 
testantism to accept that is to accept its death 
blow. The only ground upon which Protes- 
tantism has any decent right to appeal to men 
is, that it rests upon authority, no less an au- 
thority than the Bible as the Word of God. 
Protestantism was born out of Romanism. It 
came out of Romanism. It came out as a pro- 
test that the church of Rome was setting itself 
up above the Word of God; that the church 
was claiming the right to fall back upon tra- 
ditions, upon the word of man. Protestantism 
not only protested against Romanism as the 
perverter of the Bible, but as the ultimate 
denier of the Bible. Protestantism came forth 



THE FAITH 45 

and blazoned on its banners, "The Bibie and 
nothing but the Bible." On this it staked all 
its claims. This was its rallying cry. It pro- 
fessed to speak with final authority. It thun- 
dered in the ears of Pope and prelate, church 
and council, a "thus saith the Lord," as the end 
of all controversy. And men listened, as men 
will listen, to the voice of claimed authority, 
even though it be a false voice ; for, it has been 
uncouthly but truthfully said, that "a lie well 
stuck to, is better than the truth half told;" 
half told, half heartedly uttered, or breathed 
out with apology, guess and doubt. 

Protestantism is throwing away its author- 
ity. It is to-day making a complete surrender. 
When men in the chairs of theological insti- 
tutions, preachers in the pulpits, and profes- 
sedly Christian writers, testify that the Bible 
is no longer to be accepted as fully inspired 
of God; that divine inspiration is to be found 
only in spots, and then, to be accepted only 
after being certified by a committee of recog- 
nized and modern scholarship ; that Abraham 
and Moses are fictitious personages, the book 
of Daniel to a large degree an imposture, the 
synoptic Gospels an unfortunate compilation, 
John's Gospel an Alexandrine emanation, the 
book of Acts composed by some unknown 
writer who would, if possible, reconcile the 
Pauline and the Petrine factions by giving a 
measure of justice to each; that Paul made 
mistakes in his doctrine and was continually 



46 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

hampered by his crass Hebraism ; and that the 
book of Revelation is so utterly absurd that it 
ought not to be bound up with the Bible at 
all ; when representative men teach this ; when 
some teachers testify, not only that Christ was 
not virgin born, but that he never would have 
claimed to be the Messiah, had it not been for 
the insistence of his friends; that his death 
was not a necessity, but due in a large measure 
to his own headstrong determination to go to 
Jerusalem at the wrong time and was, in fact, 
little better than a useless suicide; when this 
sort of teaching may be heard or read in the 
Protestant church, it is evident that Protest- 
antism is surrendering its only authority. When 
a church no longer speaks with authority it 
has no right to speak at all. For a church 
without absolute and final authority to arrest 
the attention of men, to bid them listen for 
five minutes, is a sorry spectacle and an ex- 
cuseless impertinence. 

It is because Protestantism no longer speaks 
with authority that it has lost, and is losing, 
its power with the multitude. The Catholic 
church is succeeding where Protestantism fails, 
just because it does speak with a claim to 
authority. While that church perverts Holy 
Scripture; while it travesties the Word of 
God; while it sets before men a Christianity 
that is treason to the actual truth of Christ; 
while it is a church that is represented in 
Scripture as a harlot church, an idolatrous 



THE FAITH 47 

church, a church that shall, at the last, be de- 
stroyed from the face of the earth by the in- 
dignation and the wrath of God; yet, because 
it speaks with the claim of authority, claims 
to speak with the voice of God and makes no 
compromise with the modern spirit, it is com- 
ing into the middle of the highway, while Pro- 
testantism seems to be groping for the wall. 

The church is losing its power because it is 
endeavoring to carry on the work of God by 
mere machinery; depending upon organized 
method, instead of upon the Spirit of God. 

The Spirit of God is like the wind — it comes 
and goes where "it listeth." You cannot put 
it into human harness, or control it by mere 
human planning. The Spirit has its own in- 
strumentality, that instrumentality is the Word 
and doctrine. Without the doctrine the Spirit 
will not work. You may try it. You may set 
aside every old doctrine you find in the way of 
modern ideas. You may ignore the unseen 
Spirit of God. You may call on the wise men 
according to the flesh. You may listen to their 
wisdom, follow their plans, and organize your 
church to suit the times. You may get every- 
thing fixed and nothing to do but press the 
button — and what then? Suppose after you 
have pressed the button, the Spirit of the liv- 
ing God does not see fit to work along the lines 
set down nor follow out the methods? 

The Lord Jesus has given us the picture of 
just such a state of affairs. He paints the pic- 



48 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

ture of a church perfectly organized; so per- 
fectly organized that the treasury was full, 
and the people congratulated each other say- 
ing: 'We are rich; we are increased in goods, 
and have need of nothing." It had so identi- 
fied itself with the spirit of the times and the 
place in which it dwelt; it had so completely 
given itself up to its own methods and re- 
sources, that the Son of God withdrew from it 
and stood outside the door as one no longer 
needed by them ; as one upon whom they were 
no longer casting their need and dependence. 

What a spectacle! 

A perfectly organized church — a church 
with a full treasury and — Jesus Christ outside 
of it. 

That was the church of Laodicea ; and, sin- 
gularly enough — Laodicea means, in the last 
analysis, the people's church, a church where 
the majority rule; where the voice and vote 
of the people determine in the church the 
things of God. To this splendidly organized 
church, this church abreast of the times, this 
church full of wealth and having no need, 
Christ turns and utters the most terrific ar- 
raignment. He says he knows its works. He 
knows it is neither cold nor hot. It is luke- 
warm. There is a little hot water and a little 
cold water. There is enough of religion to 
make it decent and enough of the world to 
make it attractive. There is no burning, fiery 
enthusiasm for Christ. There is no absolutely 



THE FAITH 49 

outbreaking surrender to the world, the flesh 
and the Devil. There is a little of the Spirit 
and a little of the flesh. A little of Christ and 
a little of the world. It is, on the one hand, 
an adulterated Christianity, and, on the other, 
a refined worldliness. He wished it was either 
one thing or the other; either a warm, full 
hearted witness for him; or, an absolute de- 
votee of the world. He wishes it might be 
wholly dependent on him, or utterly dependent 
on the world. Lukewarm water turns the 
stomach. It is an emetic. It makes those who 
drink it vomit. The Lord declares this luke- 
warm church makes him sick. He cannot 
stand it. He will spue it out of his mouth. 

What a statement! A church so success- 
ful, so organized, so rich, so mixed up with the 
world and its methods that it sickens God's 
Christ until he declares he will spue it out of 
his mouth. A perfectly organized, up-to-date 
church and Christ outside of it. 

Then he proceeds to analyze and lay bare 
its actual conditions. He says that with all its 
boasting it is "wretched, and miserable and 
poor (what a satire — a treasury full of money 
and yet — in the Lord's sight — poor) and blind 
(spiritually blind) and naked." He counsels 
the church (for in speaking to the angel, he 
is speaking to the church) he counsels the 
church to buy of him real riches, the gold that 
has been tried in the fire (faith) and white 
raiment (spiritual character). He exhorts 



50 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

the church to anoint the eyes (the understand- 
ing) with eye salve (the truth) that it may be 
able to see; and then he declares that hence- 
forth his dealings will be, not with the church 
as a corporate whole, but with the individual. 
If there is any one in the assembly who will 
hear his voice (speaking through his Word) 
and will open the door, he will enter in and hold 
communion with him personally, even in that 
assembly ; but the church as a professing body 
he will repudiate — he will stand outside of it. 

It is a terrific picture. 

A rich, thoroughly organized, up-to-date 
church, pervaded with the spirit of the times, 
both in doctrine and method, and — 

CHRIST OUTSIDE OF IT! 

A church, as a whole, so completely taken 
up with its own concepts ; so deaf to the voice 
and Word of Christ that he has to knock 
to gain attention ; and then, hopes to gain the 
attention and the response only of an individual 
here and there. 

It is a terrific picture and a terrific indict- 
ment. 

It has a great and far reaching meaning. 
It means you cannot exalt human genius and 
human wisdom in the place of the genius and 
the wisdom of God, and do it with impunity. 
You cannot call in the wealth and resources 
of the flesh and set aside the riches of grace 
and the resources of the Spirit without being 
repudiated of God. It means you cannot run 



THE FAITH 51 

the church of Jesus Christ as you would run a 
machine, or a department store. It means you 
cannot substitute either human doctrine or 
human methods, rational interpretation and 
rational effort, for the faith once for all de- 
livered to the saints, and the methods once for 
all inspired of the Spirit. 

To attempt to do so is an insult to the Spirit. 
It is an accusation against the Christ of God. 
It is saying that when Jesus Christ founded the 
church two thousand years ago, he was short 
sighted, he did not see this century and its 
so-called practical needs. It is, indedd, an 
isation. It is saying that the old doctrines 
are not the final utterance of the Spirit, and, 
therefore, not only not eternal, but not infalli- 
ble. It is saying that men like Jude and James, 
Pe:er and John, and the apostle Paul, did not 
know as much as some rationalistic preacher 
in the pulpit, and some self exalted layman 
in the pew. All this is an insult to Christ, 
the Head of the church. The nation of Israel 
was set aside because it refused to stand as a 
faithful witness for God. The Gentile church 
was brought in that it might be the spiritual 
temple of God, and the witness for a crucified 
and risen Lord; and, so writes the apostle 
Paul, unless it stands by faith and in the faith, 
it will be cut off and set aside. The scene in 
Laodicea is an advance on the testimony of 
Paul. It is the Lord himself speaking from 
Heaven and with solemn voice saying, 



52 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

"I WILL SPUE THEE OUT OF MY 
MOUTH." 

It is the Lord's solemn warning that the 
church which modifies or denies his Word and 
substitutes human wisdom and fleshly energy 
for his wisdom and his energy, is on the edge 
of doom. 

Here then you have a clear vision of the 
church's failure and present danger. In its 
endeavor to be modern, to conform to the 
times, to be a twentieth century church, and 
not a first century church, it is repudiating that 
Lord who is alone its Head and Life. 

And what does the apostle Jude say in 
anticipation of all this? He says, "Earnestly 
contend for the faith once for all delivered 
to the saints." He is saying that the doctrine 
delivered to the church two thousand years 
ago, must be preached to-day. He is saying 
that the method and manner of the church 
two thousand years ago, must be the method 
and manner of the church to-day. If the 
twentieth century church tells us that man 
instead of falling down has fallen up; if the 
twentieth century church tells us that the doc- 
trine of atonement by blood is the doctrine of 
the- butcher shop, and must go; that the sci- 
entific spirit repudiates the resurrection of 
the body ; that the stories of the Old Testament 
are fables and the miracles of the New to be 
rejected; if the twentieth century church tells 
us that the church cannot get on if it persists 



THE FAITH 53 

in carrying a load of old and exploded doc- 
trines, on the one side, and the slowness and 
ineptness of antiquated methods, on the other ; 
if the twentieth century church tells us that 
the church must become modern in doctrine 
and business-like in method; if the twentieth 
century church insists on all this in the name 
of an up-to-date progress, then, by this concrete 
exhortation, Jude would tell us that we are to 
stand up and repudiate the twentieth century 
church. We are to turn and tell its apostles, 
its teachers, and leaders, that it is a dead 
failure spiritually, and instead of being ahead, 
is absolutely behind the New Testament 
church ; that compared with the church of the 
first century, the twentieth century church is 
a mere weakling. 

Do you doubt it? 

Then let us take up the first century church 
on the issue of organization, plan and work; 
on the issue of modern progress and modern 
wisdom. Let us go back to Pentecost. 

Three thousand converted in one day! 

How was it done? 

Simon Peter was the preacher. 

How did he succeed? 

Did he stand up before the waiting multi- 
tude, deny the Old Scripture and give some 
new doctrine ? Nay ! He preached from a text 
written a thousand years before. He preached 
from the Old Scripture. 

Did he have a tent erected in every open lot 



54 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

of the city of Jerusalem? Did he have an 
evangelistic committee visiting from house to 
house? Did he have a bureau sending out 
evangelistic literature as thick as leaves in 
autumn? Did he have fetching advertise- 
ments placarded on all the dead walls of the 
town? Did he announce attractive music by- 
trained choirs that would vie with the choral 
service of the temple? Above all, did he have 
behind him an organized finance ready to meet 
every emergency of expense? 

Nay! 

He had none of these things. He did none 
of these things. He just stood up, a simple 
man, born and bred amid fisher folk, he just 
stood up and preached the truth of God in 
plain and simple terms, modifying nothing, 
nor giving rein to human fancy; and the 
Spirit of the living God, recognizing the Word 
as his familiar and chosen instrument, swept 
down upon the multitude. One day he 
preached, as already stated, and three thous- 
and turned to the Lord. Another day he 
preached from the same Old Scripture, and, 
this time, it was five thousand men who be- 
lieved — five thousand men, not counting the 
women and children. And yet, in this twen- 
tieth century, after an evangelistic campaign 
has been carefully planned, all the churches 
invited, a marvellous organization perfected, 
committee after committee created, after an- 
nouncement and reports of sermons and every 



THE FAITH 55 

force utilized that can awaken interest and put 
the people on the qui vive; when after weeks 
of meetings by day and by night, and the work 
of scores of well-known preachers, teachers, 
and the auxiliary corps of trained helpers from 
all denominations, a thousand persons, two- 
thirds of them women and children, profess 
conversion, we call it remarkable, a tribute to 
twentieth century organization and getting 
together — a witness that up^to-date Christian- 
ity is successful. 

Look at Paul in Corinth. 

What that name of "Corinth" evokes ! Not 
merely the city of beauty, of commerce, of 
wealth and misery, but a city where vice was 
virtue and virtue vice; where the very air 
was spiced with the breath of sensualism, and 
passion and shameless iniquity were enthroned 
in gilded palaces; where white hands 
stretched out and red lips sang siren songs ; 
where eyes of voluptuous wantonness en- 
treated man to sin, and fall, and be glad in his 
sin. A city where the lower vices and crimes 
surged through the black alleys of the slums 
in a tide of fetid wickedness and nameless 
horror of licence and brutish gratification. The 
city of all cities that might well be called the 
city of the flesh. Not alone was it a city of 
mere sensuous gratification high and low, it 
was a city where the versatile, laughing, and 
free, hearted Greek spirit ruled and reigned. 
From the Acrocorinthian heights, the city 



56 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

caught the light as it flashed from Athenian 
Minerva's shield ; and to its easy, careless vol- 
uptousness, Corinth added the accent of 
Athen's schools and the partizanship of her 
philosophies. It was a city of art, of literature, 
of science, and the energy of human genius. 

To this city Paul came. 

He entered it without letter of introduction. 
There was no syndicate of rich laymen behind 
him. He had no organization. He was poor. 
He dwelt in the scantiest quarter of the city. 
He worked as a day laborer. Yet he preached. 
He preached the Gospel of a crucified and 
risen Son of God. He knew the cross was a 
stumbling block to the Jew and foolishness 
to the Greek. Yet he founded in that city, 
and out of the most unpromising material, 
the church which stands as the church of 
Gospel order for all the centuries. 

Look at this same Paul in Ephesus. 

He goes into that great city. He takes up 
the Old Scriptures, and, mark you, he was 
equally at home in Hebrew, Greek and Latin. 
He could quote the poets. It would have been 
quite easy for him to have embroidered his 
discourse with choice selections from the an- 
thology of the hour. He was educated, cul- 
tured, deeply learned. He was not only a 
Jew, but a Roman, a free born citizen, and 
carried the prestige of that citizenship. If 
he had so chosen, he could have talked along 
the most advanced and philosophical lines. 



THE FAITH 57 

Well ! What did he do ? The record is before 
us. He takes the Old Scriptures, and from 
those Scriptures he preaches the old doctrine 
of redemption by blood. He preaches Jesus 
and the resurrection. He preaches from the 
very Scriptures which the twentieth century 
repudiates. And what happens? Something 
wonderful, indeed. Instead of taking the Old 
Scriptures and rejecting them, the people 
crowded to the public square, brought their 
infidel, their modern, and up-to-date libraries 
with them, and burned the books there, till the 
whole city was alight with the flame of the 
bonfire. 

Paul had no organization behind him. He 
did not bring himself into accord with the 
times. He just preached the Word and waited 
on God and the Spirit ; and the Spirit wrought 
through him. So it ever has been down through 
the ages. The greatest conversions have come 
when the church has got down on its knees, 
risen up, given itself to God, and then preached 
the old "faith once for all delivered to the 
saints;" preached it without modification, 
leaving the responsibility with God who gave 
the message. Thus the Spirit of God without 
waiting for human plans and human methods, 
has swept down upon the multitude and lifted 
them in tidal waves of salvation to the feet 
of Christ. 

The great force that has wrought in the 
world for God during the last two thousand 



58 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

years is this "faith once for all delivered to 
the saints." It has proved itself equal to every 
age in which it has been preached. It is the 
light which alone can penetrate the world's 
darkness, the light which alone can reveal the 
truth concerning man and the truth concern- 
ing God. In it is the testimony of divine love, 
of measureless grace, and the seeking heart of 
God. It is the instrumentality the Spirit never 
fails to use in one way or another. Whatever 
there is of salt, of spiritual sanity in the world, 
has been produced by the "faith once for all 
delivered to the saints." Whenever and wher- 
ever it has been changed to suit the times; 
whenever its statements have been minimized 
and its force diminished, there the church has 
failed, and the world, the flesh, and the Devil, 
have triumphed. 

It is, indeed, a striking sign of the times, 
that the church is so rapidly departing from 
the faith, and so eagerly accepting the new 
rationalism. It is a striking sign of the times, 
that with the refusal to endure sound doctrine, 
there is a growing and deepening spiritual 
darkness in the church, and restlessness and 
discontent in the world. It is a sign on one 
side, that the world is no longer interested in 
the church ; it is a sign on the other, that the 
church no longer has power to interest the 
world. It is a sign that the conditions so fully 
portrayed by our Lord Jesus Christ and his 
apostles, is upon us ; the time when the light 



THE FAITH 59 

of God shall grow dim and feeble in the pro- 
fessing church. It is a sign of that time when 
the Lord will turn and cut off the worldly 
church, and, taking the true body secretly 
into heaven to himself, commence, once more, 
and finally, his dealings with Israel and the 
Gentile nations. 

The need of the hour on the part of all who 
would meet their Lord with joy and not with 
shame, is to stand forth boldly, as never before, 
for the "faith once for all delivered to the 
saints," and by word of testimony, by attitude 
of life, rebuke this subtle, insidious spirit of 
so-called modernism; a spirit that, with all its 
wings of light, its smooth speech, its attractive 
preachments of morality and world wide de- 
mand for righteousness, its flattery of the nat- 
ural man, all its invitations to self reliance in 
the name of the larger Gospel, is none other 
than the Devil himself, transformed into an 
angel of light and companied by his faithful 
ministers, who are ministers of righteousness, 
indeed, but a righteousness that has no rela- 
tion to the blood of sacrifice ; and is unowned 
and unaccepted of God. 

The need of the hour is to stand for the old 
doctrine; to look at the natural man as God 
looks at him; to take God's estimate of man, 
and not man's estimate of himself. The need 
of the hour is to faithfully preach as God 
would have us preach, as he said to Jonah, 
"preach the preaching that I bid thee ;" preach 



60 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

the truth that man is not ascending in the scale 
of life but, on the contrary, still travelling the 
downward path which revealed its first de- 
scending trend when man in Eden listened to 
the Devil's lie, rather than to God's truth ; (that 
hour when leaning to his own wisdom he knew 
not God ;) the declining path which first began 
at Eden's gates and has wound down through 
the ages to this very hour. The need is to 
proclaim faithfully the total inability of the 
natural man to understand the things of God ; 
that even though an angel from Heaven should 
proclaim them, they would still be foolishness 
to him. The need and the obligation upon 
every faithful minister of Christ is to pro- 
claim in language so plain that he who runs 
may read with smoothness while he runs, that 
the only ground of approach to a holy God is 
the blood of a holy sacrifice; that the way to 
life eternal lies through death, the death of an 
infinite substitute, no less than God himself, 
manifested in the person of his Son. In face 
of the demand that the church shall turn from 
the unseen and eternal things, to the things 
that are seen and temporal ; in the face of that 
teaching which makes the resurrection of 
Christ nothing more than the continuation of 
his spirit and influence in the world; that 
teaching which makes Christianity only one 
of varied religions and puts it in the scale of 
mere comparative values, it is time for the 
ambassadors of Christ to speak and clearly 



THE FAITH 61 

testify with the apostle of old, that there is 
"none other name under heaven given among 
men, whereby we must be saved/' except the 
name of Jesus. In proportion as the wisdom 
of the hour discounts the perils of the future, 
it is more and more important that the preacher 
and teacher shall warn men in the very words 
of the Son of God himself, that it is better to 
pluck out an eye, cut off a hand or a foot, than 
having all these members, to take part in the 
second resurrection and from thence be cast 
into the lake of fire — the second death. 

It is time to lift up the voice, cry aloud and 
spare not. 

When the apostle Paul got a clear vision of 
the closing hours of this age; when he saw 
that false teachers would arise in the church, 
and that the doctrines as delivered to the saints 
would not be "endured/' he did not, like Elijah, 
fling himself down at the foot of a juniper tree 
and cry out that all was lost, that he was left 
alone; on the contrary, he said, "Preach the 
word; be instant in season, out of season; 
reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering 
and doctrine." The greater the disease, the 
more necessity for the remedy. The greater 
the peril, the more need of the rescue. 

Nor, indeed, should the true Christian 
be overwhelmed with the down-grade in the 
church, as though God had failed and his 
Word had proved untrue. Instead, let him see 
that the very characteristics of the times, the 



62 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

very repudiation of the "faith once for all de- 
livered to the saints," is the fulfillment, line for 
line, of the apostolic and Christly words, and 
the dynamic demonstration that it is, indeed, 
and in truth, not the word of man, but the 
very Word of God. Let him look upon the 
present state of the church as a sign of the 
times; as a witness of the closing hours of 
this age, the Coming of the Lord to take his 
true household of faith to himself, and, gird- 
ing the loins, let that Christian obey the ex- 
hortation of the apostle Jude to contend 
"earnestly for the faith once for all delivered 
to the saints." 



PROGRESS OF THE 
DEVIL'S LIE 



"Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and 
evil." Genesis. 3 :5. 

"The world by wisdom knew not God/' 1. 
Corinthians. 1 :21. 



The purpose of God concerning man is de- 
clared in his own words : 

"Let us make man in our image, and after 
our likeness : and let them have dominion * * * 
over the earth." Genesis. 1 :26. 

The invisible God would become visible. He 
would materialize his personality, and mani- 
fest his power in an individual life, a life 
that could be seen, heard, touched and han- 
dled. God would enthrone himself in human- 
ity, he would have the fulness of the god- 
head bodily to dwell in man. That was God's 
purpose concerning man. 

It is Incarnation! 

Not incarnation suggested and defined in the 
councils of men some thousands of years later, 
but incarnation written on the very first page 
of Genesis, proclaimed by God himself, and 
sealed in the creation of the very first man. 

Incarnation is the primal cause of the 



64 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

world's creation. It alone accounts for and 
justifies it. It lies at the very root of human- 
ity. It is its raison d'etre, its only right to be. 
Eden is the anticipation of Bethlehem, and 
Adam is, truly, "the figure of him that was 
to come." 

Humanity the revelation of God, God re- 
vealed through humanity — this is the meaning 
of man's creation, and the stamp of God's 
eternal purpose. 

The revelation of God through man, in- 
cludes the revelation of God to man. 

Such a revelation would bring man into 
intimate knowledge of, and communion with, 
the heretofore unseen God. It would make 
him a co-partner with the Almighty in the 
mysteries of being and knowledge. 

As the image of God, he would be the de- 
pository of his authority and government; as 
the likeness of God, he would reveal his con- 
stitution and character. By so much, man 
would become the very word, the exact vibra- 
tion, and the perfect reverberation of God's 
mind and thought. 

It was a great and high purpose, worthy of 
the infinite intelligence that proposed it, a fit 
suggestion of divine love, carrying with it 
the promise, not only of immeasurable honor 
and dignity, but timeless felicity. 

But the finality of this purpose was con- 
ditioned upon absolute faith. Man must take 
the place of a recipient, a dependent on the 



PROGRESS OF THE DEVIL'S LIE 65 

Lord who created him. The condition was of 
pure logic. Faith is the only agency by which 
the less can be blessed of the better, the finite 
by the infinite. It is the way alone by which 
weakness may gain from strength, and ignor- 
ance from knowledge. It is the attitude which 
glorifies God. It confesses him as supreme. 
It brings him in as the source, as the only 
factor. It makes him all in all. 

The moment man should take the place of 
faith he would be like a cathedral window 
through which the pure light would flash 
in transfigured and comprehensive beauty — 
illuminating the worshipping soul within; he 
would be as a perfect organ surrendered to the 
Masters touch, translating the silence of God 
into the music of understood promise and 
pledge. The moment of faith he would be- 
come the thesaurus of God-head, the deposi- 
tory of all the treasures of divine wisdom and 
knowledge. Faith would be the unseen but 
unfailing nexus by which, and through which, 
the eternal God would pour himself concen- 
tratedly, and yet fully, into this created being 
called man — making him the concrete of him- 
self in this world — God manifest in the flesh 
and, in truth, the visible, vicegerent God of 
the world. 

The Devil, that high and exalted intelli- 
gence whom, in marked contrast to man, the y 
angels treat with dignity, dethroned from the 
rulership of the pre-existent earth, recognized 



66 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

and owned God's purpose to make man a God 
manifest in the flesh, his governmental and 
moral representative upon the earth; and he 
threw himself across that purpose with the 
determination to thwart it and still hold for 
himself, if he might, this world, of whose 
dominion he had been officially dispossessed. 
He raised the question with man as 
to this proposed method of dependent 
faith. He suggested a doubt as to the 
integrity of God's Word, that Word wherein 
God had set up the issue of the tree of knowl- 
edge and had legislated the prohibitive pen- 
alty. The Devil, at once, formulated a subtle 
accusative suggestion against the justice of 
God. God had forbidden knowledge to man, 
except as it should come direct from him. He 
had forbidden man to seek it. He had com- 
manded him to receive it from himself and 
then, only when he should have taken the place 
of dependent and expectant faith. 

Why should God do this? Did God know 
that man had in him already the germs of 
divinity? Did he know the moment man laid 
hold of knowledge for himself, he would for- 
evermore be delivered from the place of tutel- 
age? Did he know that with one bound man 
would take his place on an equality with God ; 
that his unfolding intelligence would put him 
on a par with the infinite power? Did he 
know that man would become an independent 
God, claiming his rights as God, and refusing 



PROGRESS OF THE DEVIL* S LIE 67 

the role of a serf? Was God afraid of man, 
and would he keep him in the place of limita- 
tion and make a servant of him, a minister 
to his own glory, keeping man in continual 
ignorance of all the resources which, as God 
was his creator, in the very nature of the 
case (man being his direct emanation) must 
now be fully dwelling in him ? 

Surely, man must see, such is the Devil's 
suggestion, surely he must see that God has 
an ulterior design and is not dealing frankly. 

And, after all, did God really say thus and 
so? Did God really forbid man the way of 
knowledge ? Was it God's very Word that man 
actually heard ? 

These are the Devil's questions. 

And it is to be remembered through all ^J 
time that the Devil began his work in the 
world with a question. An interrogation point 
is the sign of a question. That sign is in the 
shape and form of a serpent, coiled and ready 
to strike. It is a fit emblem. A question with 
an innuendo concealed within its apparent 
harmlessness is a coiled serpent. The ques- 
tion that raises an innuendo against the Word 
of God is a coiled, deadly serpent. When it 
strikes it leaves the poisoned sting of disin- 
tegrating doubt. The first question with an 
innuendo in it was asked by "that old serpent, 
called the Devil, and Satan" — when he said 
with a hiss of hate in every word : 

"Hath God said?" 



V 



68 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

"Hath God said?" Is it certain that this is 
God's Word ? Is there any real evidence that 
God has spoken at all ? 

Having introduced the wedge of doubt the 
Devil suggests to man — for Eve represents 
the emotional side of man, while Adam sets 
forth the intellectual side — the Devil suggests 
to man that he put aside the demand of the 
Creator and, instead of walking by faith, walk 
in the light and by the right of his own in- 
hering reason. Let him search, let him exam- 
ine, analyze, taste, see, and know for himself. 
Let him refuse to accept anything on hearsay, 
and receive only that which he himself might 
demonstrate and prove. 

This, the Devil would have him realize, was 
the true dignity of man. To go mooning 
through the earth with the eyes shut and call- 
ing it faith ; to go groping like a blind man for 
the wall and attempt to justify that by calling 
it faith; listening for the fancied voice of 
God, and never getting beyond a weak and 
helpless dependence — that attitude was false, 
servile and shameful. Let man put the 
crown of reason on his brow, take the scep- 
tre of his own will, conquer by the force of his 
own genius, and then exercise the dominion 
which was his. Let him be a God in his own 
inalienable right — the true God of the world. 
Thus the Devil suggested and his hiss of in- 
nuendo grew into a bold and attractive prom- 
ise: 



PROGRESS OF THE DEVIL*S LIE 69 

"Ye shall be as gods." 

The issue was simple. It was an appeal 
to self exaltation and the dethronement of 
God in the soul. It was an issue simple and 
net whether man would walk by faith in God 
and come, through dependence on God, into 
his full inheritance ; or, whether he would walk 
by sight and depend on reason. 

Man set aside faith and chose reason. 

The effect of this attitude upon man is re- 
corded in Holy Writ: 

"The world by wisdom knew not God." 

In setting aside faith man turned his back 
on God. 

When man turned his back on God, God 
withdrew from partnership with man. 

For six thousand years this break in the 
faith relationship has been written in human 
history. For six thousand years man has con- 
tinued to eat of the tree of knowledge; for 
the flaming sword only kept "the way of 
the tree of life." For six thousand years he 
has battled with the problem of good and evil. 
For six thousand years he has studied and 
thought, searched and investigated. He has 
attained to much knowledge. He knows the y 
composition of certain gases and the laws 
which govern them. He has climbed to the 
highway of exalted mathematics till he can, 
from that vantage route, measure the weight, 
the density and the speed, of the circling */ 
worlds. He can look out into the dark of the 



70 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

» infinite space and tell you that a certain comet 
has been blazing its way for years earth-ward ; 
he will tell you in what constellation it will 
appear and fix to a day and second, the date 
and the time, when it will arrive. He deals 
with figures that astound. Think of the tele- 

• scope with which he sweeps a sphere of stars 
whose diameter is seven millions of years as 
light flies. Think of the audacity with which 
he measures Alcyone and tells you with as- 
sured conviction that it is a world in making 
and yet, as a sun, outshines the strength of 
twelve thousand of our own. On this highway 
of mathematics he will travel nearly three bil- 
lions of miles to where Neptune holds his 

• nightly vigil on the frontiers of our solar sys- 
tem, and soaring beyond, away beyond, all 
vision, will speak of distance in figures that 
make the brain to swim and every nerve to 
quiver. 

He has applied his knowledge till it is a 

ratio of power. Mountains flow down at his 

presence and fill the valleys at his will. The 

^ desert blossoms when he commands, and the 

mines yield up their wealth. He moves upon 

• the sea, and the restless waters own him as 
their king, bearing him aloft upon their high- 
est waves, and keeping him and all his costly 
freight on even level. Electricity, the last 
loosed angel of power, bends its neck, and 
owns the human lordship of the world. Land 
and sea are part of his conquered domain, 



PROGRESS OF THE DEVIL*S LIE 71 

and now, he is invading the realm of air, v 
taking wings unto himself and seeking to fly 
to the uttermost parts of the earth and, as- 
cending sunward, endeavors with his own un- 
aided hand to reach and hold the highest 
throne of God. 

I do not speak of the analysis he has made 
of himself, the analysis of his body and mind. 
He has taken his body apart and put it to- 
gether again like a machine and says, loftily, 
I am greater than my body. He is now entering 
into the phenomena of the soul, and standing 
on the edge of the unseen, endeavors to throw 
the plummet line of his reason into the un- 
resounding worlds filled with forms and forces 
beyond the sweep of eyelash and the touch 
of finger-tip. 

When you follow him along the pathway of 
what seems to be his actual achievement, he 
does appear like a very God. And when you 
realize that he is a creature who walks by sight 
and reason, it would look as though he had ful- 
filled the Devil's suggestion, made good the 
Devil's pledge, attained to the role of ruler- 
ship divine, and become an actual God. 

But his achievements are one-sided. 

They are all on the side o f nature , and 
nature alone. In not a single instance is it 
on the side of nature's God. Today, he knows 
more about molecular action than at any time 
since his fall ; but, concerning the God who is 
behind molecular action, he knows nothing 



72 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

at all. Take up the last and most scientifically 
stated definition of God, and it is the most 
conclusive evidence of his abysmal ignorance 
and the mental gulf between them. Indeed, 
in proportion as man makes advances in scien- 
tific knowledge, the farther away does the idea 
of a personal God recede from him, and his 
most scientific statement is, that God does not 
exist. 

By wisdom he knows not God. 

He knows good and evil. 

Yea, he knows the good he should do, and 
knows he cannot do it. He knows the evil 
he should shun, and knows he cannot shun it. 
He knows the problem of good and evil and 
cannot solve it. With the highest civilization, 
he carries the burden of co-ordinate crime. He 
spends millions to repress that crime, and like 
a black, foul immeasurable flood, it breaks over 
every dyke and pervades the land. 

He assembles his congresses to discuss pen- 
ology and brings forth propositions that might 
well make angels weep. He would demon- 
strate that evil is local, personal, and may be 
cured. To bring about this cure, he would 
turn his prisons into school houses, factories, 
shops, art studios and literary bureaus. He 
would make the congenitally depraved, the en- 
vironment villain, the sinner by suggestion, 
and the lawless lawbreaker, to feel honored 
and not punished by his prison sojourn. He 
would have him look upon that prison as the 



PROGRESS OF THE DEVIL*S LIE 73 

forcing house, so to speak, the incubator, of 
inhering divinity until, step by step, the essen- 
tial and the exceeding sinfulness of sin, is lost, 
and punishment becomes the badge of distinc- 
tion, and not the brand of shame. 

He knows not God. He cannot grapple with 
the problem of evil. He cannot govern him- 
self. He has tried every form of government 
and failed in all. With a world packed with 
plenty and room enough for every man and 
woman to have a home, it is the few who live 
in luxury and the many who are pinched by 
want. With multiplied inventions, with extend- 
ed knowledge, has come increased dissatisfac- 
tion and ever widening unrest. Never since the 
world began were the peoples in such commo- 
tion. Knowledge has increased and many run 
to and fro. The whole world is on the move, 
like waves of the sea that lash each shore, fly- 
ing over the land at incredible speed, climbing 
the mountains, crossing the oceans, plunging 
into this affair or that. Each day new schemes 
are devised, new plans arranged, to be thrown 
aside for something newer still. There is fever 
in the veins, there is nothing abiding. Call- 
ing the Twentieth Century the bloom of civili- 
zation and the highest expression of human 
genius, the security of that civilization and 
its hope for tomorrow , rest upon cannon and 
gunpowde r ag thf> nnly in^t]^t'mn Each day, 
as civilization advances, armies are multiplied 
on land and Dreadnaughts on the sea. 



74 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

In the exact proportion as the light of man's 
knowledge increases, his spiritual darkness 
deepens, and, at the very moment when he 
would reach out for the sceptre of continued 
power, he stumbles, and falls into the grave, 
a pitiable pile of breathless dust, leaving carved 
upon his tomb the interrogation point which 
the Devil bequeathed him at the beginning as 
his armorial bearing and device. Beginning 
life with a question thrust into his soul, ask- 
ing questions through all the days of his years, 
he goes out of the world with a question on 
his lips, and no answer to his crying. With 
all his wit and wisdom he passes on, and the 
dead thing called his body and which, while 
he lived, seemed to be all of him, becomes the 
self mocking witness that he aimed at God- 
head's throne and found a brute beast's grave. 

And thus, when the Devil in that far Eden 
time, whispered in man's soul that he should 
be as God, and that by virtue of his own rea- 
son and self resource, he told the great lie. 
Well did the Son of God say of him : 

"He was a murderer (a man-killer) from 
the beginning, and abode not in the truth, be- 
cause THERE IS NO TRUTH in him. When 
he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for 
he is a liar, and the father of it." John. 8 :44. 

He told a lie and, by reason of that lie, 
brought death upon man and, in this fashion, 
became the actual murderer of man. 

For six thousand years the world has paid 



PROGRESS OF THE DEVIL'S LIE 75 

the awful price of listening to that lie. Every 
pain of body, every sigh and every tear, and 
the grave that is dug at last, these are the 
consequences of that lie; and still, the world 
loves it and applauds it whenever told. So 
fascinating has that lie become ; so thoroughly 
is it in the blood, that each day man insists 
upon its truth and would have it taught to 
his children and his children's children. 

The immense progress which this lie is mak- 
ing may be seen in the trend of modern teach- 
ing as illustrated in our schools, our colleges, 
and universities. It is here it finds its great- 
est emphasis, its most active apostles ; from 
hence it goes forth to propagate, pervade, and 
fill the earth until all the sons of men are 
charmed and fascinated as though a serpent 
held them with its subtle gaze and hypnotized 
them with its interpenetrating sounds. 

The basis of modern college and university 
training is evolution — a finding in nature all 
the forces which account for creation, and see- 
ing in man the highest outcome of these forces. 

Beginning with the lowest form of life, all 
forces work on and upward to man. Man 
comprehends within himself all the forces that 
have gone before. His personality is their 
product. So far as investigation goes he is 
the only personality in the universe. Nature's 
forces having evoked this personality are now 
ready to submit themselves to its investigation 
and domination. In creating man, nature has 



76 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

created her own God. Henceforth man's com- 
plete rule and domination over matter will 
be only a question of time. The laws of na- 
ture do not change, they are fixed. The only 
thing which can change and develop is man's 
intelligence. As this intelligence increases by 
its use, man will know how to deal with law 
and force, and so apply them to his uses that 
he will be enthroned above them. It may take 
time. It has taken time, but his intelligence 
is now unfettered as it never was before. 
Through long ages it was held in the swaddling 
bands of fear and superstition; his fear and 
superstition gave occasion for the founding 
of those religions which imposed upon him, 
and held him in leash. He has broken loose. 
With the last half century he has thrown aside 
his chains and stood erect; as a consequence, 
the mightiest revolution in the realm of ap- 
plied science has come within these later years. 
When he has liberated his intelligence com- 
pletely, he will be in a position to dictate 
terms to nature's forces and out of them build 
the throne of his final domination. It will take 
time, it is true, but, it is only a question of 
time. 

Accept this proposition and the moral re- 
sults are inevitable. 

To such a man there can be but one infal- 
lible text-book — nature herself. Hence, to the 
scientific man, who looks upon himself as the 
product of evolution and not the fiat creation 



PROGRESS OF THE DEVIL'S LIE 77 

of a personal God — the Bible must go. To keep 
it would be to tie a millstone about the doc- 
trine of evolution. 

Either the Bible or evolution must go. 

But much more even than this ! As nature 
is the text-book and man the infallible inter- 
preter — and man is the supreme personality, 
then he is, and must be, a law unto himself. 
Admit this, admit that evolution must carry 
him on to his destiny, it follows that the past 
cannot coerce or control him; no laws, no 
concept made yesterday can have their vogue 
today. Given evolution and man as the high- 
est outcome, he must, more and more, feel that 
he is a law unto himself, his own arbiter and 
must, more and more, demand freedom from 
all temporary standards of moral or religious 
restraint. 

As he passes on and enters into new condi- 
tions, there must be new standards. The stan- 
dard of morals fit for a hundred years ago 
will not fit tomorrow. As he advances to the 
heights of individual freedom, he will see that 
the restraints that have been put upon the 
body and mind of men and women in the past 
were due to ignorance and superstition. He 
will say that the world is his; all things are 
his ; likewise all his endowments are his. Each 
man and each woman has the inalienable right 
to the freest and fullest exercise of those en- 
dowments, and any standard which interferes 
with this personal liberty, use and gratifica- 



78 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

tion, is out of place in the widening world into 
which he is slowly coming as his own. 

Such a trend means, sooner or later, the 
repudiation of all religions which set up a su- 
preme God, all faith which claims an infallible 
Bible, and all standards of morals which fix 
a definite line of character, or limit the exer- 
cise of the personal volition. In short, the 
trend of modern education is to deny the Bible, 
the Christ of God, and the God of Christ. 

As evidence of the trend in modern teach- 
ing, listen to the utterance of some of the lead- 
ing educators of this country : 

"The welfare of the world," says one, "de- 
pends upon the spirit of man, and not upon 
the paternal love of a non-resident God." 

Another professor in a great university says : 

"The least creature of all mortals has more 
dignity and value than even an Almighty God, 
as that being is popularly conceived," and, of 
course, by this "popular" concept is meant 
the concept which comes from the Bible. 

One professor with great earnestness tells 
us that, 

"Whiskey, cocaine, and alcohol, bring tem- 
porary insanity, and so does a revival of re- 
ligion — one of the religious revivals in which 
men lose their reason and self-control. This 
is simply a form of drunkenness no more 
worthy of respect than the drunkenness that 
lies in the gutter." 

A third declares: 



PROGRESS OF THE DEVIL'S LIE 79 

"Religious revivalism is a social bane. It 
is more dangerous to the life of society than 
drunkenness. As a sot, man falls below the 
brute — as a revivalist, he sinks lower than the 
sot" 

This is saying that such men as Wesley, 
Whitefield, and Moody — all men who have ex- 
alted the God of righteousness, set forth the 
Christ as the alone way, the truth and the life, 
and exhorted men to turn from sin, iniquity 
and vice, by giving themselves over to the 
mastery of a risen and Holy Lord, were worse 
than drunken sots. It is saying that every 
man who seeks to lift men out of the slough 
and shame of sin into co-ordinate life and fel- 
lowship with this holy and living Christ, is 
below the filthiness of the brute beast of a 
drunken sot who wallows in the mire of the 
gutter and, in his drunkenness, prides himself 
upon the same advanced unbelief as that of 
the superior professor who so describes him. 

One eminent professor announces that New 
England became worthless when the Puritans 
ceased to drink strong drink. 

It is this professor who is the author of 
the epigram that, 

"New England has ice water, but no art." 

And this is the teaching of another before 
his class: 

"The religious hosannah is the outcome of 
a religious orgy." 

One well known woman professor teaches 



80 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

her students that the stories of the Old Testa- 
ment are myths and fables, and that the New 
Testament record of the virgin birth of Christ 
is of no serious value. 

One advanced instructor teaches openly 
that marriage is not divine, that men and 
women are not joined together by any decree 
of God. Marriage is a simple contract, and, 
like any other business contract, may be 
broken at mutual will. Divorce is legitimate, 
and may be a means of righteousness. In- 
deed, some teachers go so far as boldly to de- 
clare that incest is not contrary to the laws 
of nature, or disapproved by any fancied 
ordinance of God. 

Thus the trend in college and university 
thought as expressed by some of its leading 
and most representative teachers and think- 
ers is, that man is the avatar of God and, in- 
creasingly, has the right to break down all 
laws and legislation which hinder the evo- 
lution and exaltation of the supreme person- 
alism in man. 

In this way, every day, thousands of the 
young men and women of the land are be- 
ing led to repudiate the God of the Bible and 
the standards of the Bible. Thousands of the 
very flower of our youth are being taught in- 
sidiously to set aside every law and pre- 
cept which does not give full and personal 
liberty, and are being led to believe tihat 
they are in themselves as the throne of God 
and the final tribunal 



PROGRESS OF THE DEVIL'S LIE 81 

The moral consequences of all this are 
sure. 

It means, sooner or later, the total repudia- 
tion of the Christianity of Christ and the 
Bible by the educated classes, and the setting 
up in the name of psychology of a religion 
of actual materialism, cultivated license, and 
the self-satisfied proclamation that man is 
God. 

It is th e old whis pered, lie of the Devil, l/ 

"Ye shall be as gods." 

Thus far has the Devil's lie progressed. 

It has led man to attempt to reach by his 
own unaided effort, the throne and dominion 
God would have given him in full receipt for 
simple faith. It has led him to cultivate and 
develop the powers which God placed in him 
and which, if he had not fallen, would have 
required no long ages slowly and inadequately 
to reveal; powers which, in his fellowship 
with God and in a body that would have be- 
come immortal, would have enabled him to 
achieve results which the highest attainment 
of science can never more than hint, which 
the Christ of God has outlined in his own 
miraculous deeds; and the power of which 
he bequeaths to those who are his, in com- 
ing days; assurance whereof is given in that 
wide reaching assertion wherein he says that 
he is going to the Father, and because he is 
going to the Father as their forerunner (as 
the guaranty that they shall be like him) 



82 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

they shall do greater works than even he did 
while on the earth: the guaranty that in the 
coming days of their immortality they shall 
manifest powers surpassing what he revealed in 
the days of his mortality. But man, apart 
from God, and without this genius of Christ, 
has attempted in his own strength to reach 
the outlines of God's original purpose in him, 
and has succeeded only so far as to make it 
evident that he never can attain. 

The Devil's lie has led man in his outreach 
for the throne to become no more than "an 
animal working with tools," when he might 
have been long ago as very God in the exercise 
of a power where to will and to do should 
both have been present; when he should have 
commanded, and it would have been done; 
when his intelligence unclouded by sin, and 
his will in unbroken union with God, would 
have been the unobstructed channels through 
which the supreme God of the universe would 
have found infinite joy in expressing his limit- 
less power. 

The Devil's lie has led man to flatter him- 
self in his own eyes and, blinding him to the 
call of eternity, shuts him up to a horizon 
of time, and the accumulated dust of the 
crumbling years. 

The Word of God teaches that the Devil's 
lie will progress in the world till it finds its 
culmination in the exaltation of one man 
above all other men — a man who will claim 



PROGRESS OF THE DEVIL'S LIE 83 

to be God, and whose claim an applauding 
world will willingly allow. A man who shall 
be head and shoulders intellectually above the 
most intellectual of men; who will be en- 
dowed with the most extraordinary powers; 
whose ability in every direction will be so 
versatile and phenomenal that all the world 
will wonder after him, and his name be re- 
peated with amazement on every lip; a man 
to whose profundity of thought will be joined 
the eloquence of tongue; to whose genius of 
statesmanship will be added the heroism of a 
soldier and the prestige of a conqueror; a 
man who will be the supreme expert in all 
scientific investigation; who will be possessed 
of occult as well as philosophic powers; who 
will be as much at home in the laboratory as 
he will be in the chair of dialectics. His knowl- 
edge will sound the depths of the unseen 
and bring forth secrets such as the world in 
its wildest imaginings never dreamed. Ris- 
ing "above the arts of the mere prestidigita- 
teur, he will perform deeds in the name of 
science which shall seem as very miracles; by 
his power, lifeless images and pictures shall be 
made to speak, fire shall be made to come 
down from heaven, and by reason of his 
inventions the earth will be filled with won- 
ders. 

He will be the greatest wealth accumulator 
the world has ever known. Midas-like, every- 
thing he touches will turn to gold — his invest- 



84 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

ments will return him the income of kings. 
His interests will be world-wide and his 
operations on a scale that will allow no com- 
petition. All business will eventuate in his 
control, not a factory can open its doors, 
not a train can move upon its tracks, or a 
ship sail upon the sea, unless he wills. All 
lines of operation will be so concentrated in 
his hands that he can at ease dictate his terms. 
He can make peace or war, set up kings or cast 
them down. He will play politics as a gambler 
plays with cards. His outgoings and incom- 
ings will be reported every hour, his speech, 
his slightest word, his acts, will form the 
staple of the world's printed and reprinted 
news. He will be the man of the hour, the 
man in whom all the genius of the race, all 
the ambition of the sons of men, will find 
their highest and most forceful expression. 

He will set the fashion of the hour. What- 
ever he may do will be the vogue. Wholly 
a scientist and yet, a mystic, he will dictate 
the mental and religious attitude of men. 
Laughing at the thought of a "non-resident 
God," and filling his lips with the most as- 
tounding blasphemy against the old faith, his 
open and scientific infidelity will be regarded 
as the highest wisdom, the profoundest scholar- 
ship, and the only standard to follow. 

Our Lord Jesus Christ paints his portrait 
when he says: 

He "shall come in his own name." John, 
5:43. 



PROGRESS OF THE DEVIL'S LIE 85 

Paul identifies him when he writes to the 
Thessalonians : 

"Who opposeth and exalteth himself above 
all that is called God* * * ^showing himself 
that he is god/' 2 Thessalonians. 2 : 4. 

Nor is it at all difficult to conceive, in view 
of the trend of modern scholastic thought, how 
such a culmination might come to the world, 
and come to it unconsciously. 

According to the latest statement of As- 
tronomy, this earth of ours is, practically, in 
the center of the stellar universe. In the mak- 
ing of worlds our planet has been placed where 
it could best develop and sustain life. So far, 
research has shown it to be the only habitable 
world. As a consequence, man is the only 
real personal inhabitant of the universe. As 
such, therefore, he is the supreme personality 
in it. If it be true, that nature in working 
out her multiform forces has from the be- 
ginning been working to produce man as its 
ultimate and highest ; if it be true, that matter 
is the great, original matrix, and that every 
form, every motion, and all force, had in them 
the prophecy of man; if it be true, that the 
image of man lay concealed in every atom, and 
through the long ages of evolution the small- 
est mite, the most insignificant force, and the 
frailest life germ, were all, each in its own 
way, working out on this model ; if it be true, 
that man is the universe itself, at last to come 
to personality as its head, then man, consid- 



86 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

ered collectively, is the God of the universe, 
and each individual man is in greater or less 
degree a personal God. 

Admit this, and it becomes evident that the 
man who is endowed above his fellows, is a 
super-man (and there have appeared in the 
world from time to time men who, by their 
extraordinary and phenomenal endowment, 
have been so far above their fellows that they 
might be well called super-men, subliminal 
men) ; admit the existence, in a coming day, of 
a man who is in every department of human 
endowment beyond all comparison superior to 
any other man in the world, by what law of 
logic shall it be denied that, as all men are 
more or less God, this man, supreme to all 
men, is not a supreme God, and worthy the 
acclamation and, at least, mental worship of 
all other men? 

And this tendency to acclaim and exalt one 
man, even though it be but for a time, is 
manifesting itself more and more each day 
in the increased emphasis of what is familiar- 
ly known as "hero worship." 

From the beginning of time the world 
has always been in search of a hero; 
whether it were a Nimrod, the mighty 
hunter, a Caesar or an Alexander; 
whether it be in the realm of government, of 
art, of literature, or science, everywhere, the 
crowd is seeking some one man that it may 
exalt, follow and applaud him. Let a man 



PROGRESS OF THE DEVIL'S LIE 87 

with his millions appear in public, the multi- 
tude will turn aside to look at him, follow him, 
and set him in a place, unconsciously, above 
themselves; they are drawn to him by the 
gravitation of the superior power which he 
represents. Let the man be an author of re- 
pute, a singer, a dramatist, a statesman, or an 
orator, the crowd will gather to do him hom- 
age, the homage that owns a superior endow- 
ment. Nor is the crowd always particular who 
he is or what he has done, so that his doing is 
out of the ordinary and represents its own par- 
ticular superiority. Not long ago one of the 
great thoroughfares of New York was com- 
pletely blocked, and traffic stopped, by a surg- 
ing, swelling mass of humanity, men, women, 
children, people of every grade of life, from 
the banker to the gamin, that they might see 
a colossal black man step out of a railway 
station; gathered there from all quarters of 
the busy city that they might look upon him 
and applaud him, because he had proved him- 
self in the arena of a prize fight to be a more 
enduring brute than the white man who was 
opposed to him. For days previous to the 
demoralizing spectacle, the spectacle of two 
men seeking to mar each other, even at the 
risk of a blow of death, the whole world, by 
means of correspondence, a press subsidized 
by the promise of popularity, wireless teleg- 
raphy, pen and pencil, was kept informed of 
the doings of these two men. They were 



88 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

the physical and muscular heroes of the hour, 
and countless thousands felt themselves drawn 
towards them by that strange attraction which 
makes a super-man, in any direction, seem like 
a God to his lesser fellows. When a foot- 
ball player wins for his college, or a boat's 
crew reaches the winning mark, thousands are 
ready to press forward and take the victor 
on their shoulders and crown him as the hero 
of the hour. The other day when a French 
aviator came in as the winner in a long dis- 
tance race, he was greeted by the shouts, the 
wild applause, and the actual delirium of 
two hundred thousand frenzied men and wo- 
men who exalted his name and fame and 
would, had there been a throne at hand, have 
placed him upon it and crowned him, for the 
moment at least, as the God of the upper 
air. 

The feeling inherent in man that he ought 
to be as God leads him to exalt and practi- 
cally deify every man who rises above him- 
self, seeing in that man the representation 
and expression of himself, and finding in him 
the ground and reason for his own exalta- 
tion; by a law of reciprocity, he gives ap- 
plause to the superior man that he may re- 
ceive the comfort in himself that he too is 
of the genus divine. The culmination of the 
Devil's lie in a man in whom the world will 
see its highest concept of God, whom the world 
will proclaim and own as such, though it may 



PROGRESS OF THE DEVIL'S LIE 89 

call him simply a great man, the momentary 
hero, is, not only the logical outcome of the 
present trend of scholastic, scientific, and 
philosophic thought ; not only the trend of the 
natural man in every direction — it is the clear 
and unmistakable announcement of the Word 
of God. 

Paul calls him "the man of sin, the son of 
perdition, the lawless one." 

John says, 

"He is ANTICHRIST." 

This progress of the Devil's lie then, is a 
startling sign of the times. 

The Apostle Paul in his epistle to the Thes- 
salonians tells us that before this culmination 
in Antichrist takes place, the church will be 
translated from the world to meet a secretly 
descending Lord. 

He says: 

"Ye know what withholdeth that he might ' 
be revealed in his time. 

For the mystery of iniquity (lawlessness) 
doth already work; only he who now letteth 
(withholdeth, hindereth) will let, until he be 
taken out of the way." 2 Thessalonians. 2 :7. 

The mystery of lawlessness is the Devil's 
lie working out to its culmination in the super- 
man, whom, in the next verse, Paul calls, 
"that Wicked," in the Greek, ho-anomos, "The 
Lawless One," none other than the man of 
sin, the Antichrist. 

There is, says the Apostle, a person who 



90 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

holds him back, "he who now letteth," that is, 
hinders, withholds. This person hinders his 
manifestation; for the present, is a barrier to 
his revelation. So long as this person con- 
tinues to hinder, the Devil's lie cannot attain 
to its full culmination. 

In the very nature of the case, no mere 
human personality can keep back this culmina- 
tion; on the contrary, all human agencies 
are seeking night and day to bring it about. 
There is only one person in the world, to- 
day, who can successfully exercise that hin- 
dering power; that person is the Holy Spirit 
— -as it is written : 

"When the enemy [that Lawless One] shall 
come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord 
shall lift up a standard against him." Isaiah. 
59:19. 

The Apostle says that this Spirit, who is 
none other than the Holy Spirit, is to be taken 
away from the earth; and that when he is so 
taken away, then, 

"Shall that wicked [that Lawless One, the 
Antichrist] be revealed. ,, 2 Thessalonians. 2 :8. 
The Holy Spirit is in the world, but he has 
a particular and ordained dwelling-place in the 
world. That dwelling-place is the body of 
the individual Christian, as it is written: 

"Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost 
which is in you, which ye have of God." 1. 
Corinthians. 6:19. 

The Holy Spirit dwells individually in each 



PROGRESS OF THE DEVILS LIE 91 

Christian and, therefore, in the whole church. 
He dwells in the church as the body of Christ, 
informing and filling it. To take away the 
Holy Spirit from the world must mean one 
of two things, either to take the Holy Spirit 
out of the Christian and out of the church, 
leaving them in the world without power to 
meet the culminating crisis of the Devil's lie ; 
or, else, it means to take the Holy Spirit out 
of the world by taking the church as his dwell- 
ing place out of the world, and at the same 
time. 

To separate the Holy Spirit from the Chris- 
tian is not possible. David might cry, "take 
not thy Holy Spirit from me," but the Chris- 
tian has no need to offer such prayer; the 
Holy Spirit is in him as the seal and abiding 
guaranty of the day of redemption when he 
shall be delivered from mortality and clothed 
in the outward as well as moral likeness of his 
Redeemer; for it is written: 

"The Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are 
sealed unto the day of redemption." Gala- 
tians. 4:30. 

And again: 

"Ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of 
promise, 

Which is the earnest of our inheritance un- 
til the redemption of the purchased possession, 
unto the praise of his glory." Ephesians. 1 :13. 

If it is impossible to take the Holy Spirit 
away from the Christian (and it is impossible), 



92 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

in the nature of the case it cannot be taken 
away from the church. The Christian, the 
church, and the Holy Spirit, are bound to- 
gether with indissoluble bonds. In order to 
take the Holy Spirit out of the world, there- 
fore, the church and every individual Chris- 
tian must be taken out at the same time. 

The culmination of the Devil's lie and, there- 
fore, the revelation of Antichrist, will take 
place when the church is translated from the 
world. 

That the church will be translated, snatched 
out of the world at the coming of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, is of the record; for, it is writ- 
ten: 

"The Lord himself shall descend from 
heaven with a shout, with the voice of the 
archangel, and with the trump of God: and 
the dead in Christ shall rise first: 

Then we which are alive and remain, shall 
be caught up together with them in the clouds, 
to meet the Lord in the air: so shall we ever 
be with the Lord." 1 Thessalonians. 4:16, 17. 

This coming of the Lord for his church will 
be in secret; in secret and without warning 
the church will be taken away. Thus it is 
written : 

"The day of the Lord so cometh as a thief 
in the night. ,, 1. Thessalonians. 5:2. 

The day of the Lord commences in the 
evening — the evening of the times — the close 
of the age. This age is the church age. The 



PROGRESS OF THE DEVIL'S LIE 93 

close of this age is, therefore, the taking away 
of the church out of this age. The church, 
according to the previous chapter is to be taken 
away by the descent of the Lord into the air. 
The descent of the Lord into the air then, 
will be the end of this age and the beginning 
of the day of the Lord. As the day of the 
Lord begins with an action like that of a thief, 
and this action is the coming of the Lord, 
then the coming of the Lord is like the com- 
ing of a thief. As the church is to be taken 
away at the coming of the Lord, then the ac- 
tion of the Lord in taking away the church 
is like the action of a thief. A thief comes 
suddenly, without warning, secretly, quietly. 
The advent of the thief is not known till he 
has gone and the treasure with him. Just 
so, the Lord is coming and, secretly, without 
warning, will snatch away the church — the 
pearl of great price — and present it to himself 
in heaven. Then the barrier to the consum- 
mation of the Devil's lie will be gone. 

What shall we say to these things? 

What can we say but that the present prog- 
ress of the Devil's lie is a witness that we are 
on the threshold of the secret and imminent 
coming of the Lord. 

What less can we say, than that the daily 
progress of the lie is a warning that the cul- 
mination in the man of sin is at hand, and that, 
as the Lord has promised to descend and take 
his church to himself before that culmination 



94 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

is attained, then the emphasis upon the Lord's 
imminency has grown intense, and is echoing 
at our very door. 

The progress of the Devil's lie is a start- 
ling sign of the times. The increasing effort 
to throw off all faith in, and all obligation 
to, the living God; the increasing effort to 
make science and reason the levers by which 
man may lift himself into the supreme domin- 
ion of the world; his self gratulation over as- 
cending power; his determination to consider 
himself as a God: these things, one and all, 
give warning that the day of the Devil's 
temporary triumph comes on apace ; warn us, 
with exceeding great and solemn warning, 
that, at any moment, the Lord himself may 
descend and call us up to meet him at the 
judgment seat, that we may answer to our 
name and, as Christians, give an accounting 
for our deeds. 



JERICHO THEOLOGY 

or 

The Modern Theological College 

A Menace and a Peril 

to the Church 



Elijah had been a mighty minister of God. 
He had faced Ahab the wicked king of Israel 
in his own court, and had delivered to him the 
message of Jehovah against his unrighteous- 
ness and sin. He had prayed that it might 
not rain, and the heavens had become brass 
till the land of Palestine was like a heap of 
wind-blown dust. He had met the prophets 
of Baal on Mount Carmel and challenged 
them to the test of fire to determine whether 
Baal was God, or the God of Israel; and 
when the offering of the idolaters in spite 
of all their cryings remained unconsumed 
by any fiery response on the part of their 
god, he had prayed, and Jehovah had 
answered, fire leaping from heaven to consume 
and accept his offering. He had put the four 
hundred prophets of Baal to the sword. He 
prayed again, the flood gates of heaven were 
opened and the rain came as a benediction to 
the suffering earth. Later he had stood upon 
the holy mount. God sent the squadrons of 



96 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

nature's forces wheeling about him. The 
winds swept and swirled as though they 
would bend the very mountain top, there came 
the riving of the rocks beneath him, the light- 
nings of God illumined the heavens, the thun- 
ders spoke as the accents of his power, and 
then in a still small voice the Lord announced 
to him that his ministry was at an end, bid- 
ding him seek Elisha the son of Shaphat as 
his successor. 

The day had now arrived when the 
Lord would take up Elijah by a whirlwind 
into heaven. Elijah and Elisha found them- 
selves together at Gilgal. Elijah would test 
Elisha and know whether there was genu- 
ine response in him to the call of God. He 
said that the Lord God had sent him to Bethel, 
and bade Elisha tarry at Gilgal while he went 
forward. Elisha swore by the Lord and the 
soul of Elijah that he would not be separated 
from him. 

They came to Bethel. 

At Bethel there was a theological institution 
known as the school of the prophets, the stu- 
dents were known as the sons of the prophets. 
These latter came forth and announced to 
Elisha that the Lord that day would take away 
his master. He replied he knew it and bade 
them hold their peace. Elijah would test 
Elisha again, and telling him that the Lord 
had bidden him go to Jericho, exhorted him to 



JERICHO THEOLOGY 97 

remain behind. As before, Elisha swore he 
would not leave him. 

They came to Jericho. 

At Jericho there was another theological in- 
stitution known as the school of the prophets, 
and a body of students known as the sons of 
the prophets. These came forth and repeated 
the warning given by the students at Bethel. 
To them Elisha returned the same answer. 

Again Elijah tested Elisha. The Lord, he 
said, had sent him to Jordan, let Elisha remain 
where he was. Elisha responded with the 
same insistence, he would not leave him. 

The two came to Jordan. 

Elijah now wrapped his mantle together, 
smote the waters hither and thither, the river 
opened a pathway before them, together they 
descended and passed through between gleam- 
ing crystal walls to the other side. Elijah in- 
quired of Elisha what he might do for him 
before he was taken away. Elisha desired that 
a double portion of the prophet's spirit might 
rest upon him. Elijah recognized that this 
was a hard thing. It afforded him, however, 
an opportunity to make a final test of his suc- 
cessor. He declared that if Elisha should see 
him when he was taken away the request 
would be granted, not otherwise. Elijah made 
that test for he knew if the root of the matter 
was in Elisha his gaze would be fixed, not on 
the earth, but on heavenly things. 

While they were going on together, sud- 



98 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

denly Elijah was parted from his companion 
and swept by a whirlwind to heaven. Elisha 
cried out, "My father, my father! the chariot 
of Israel, and the horsemen thereof." 

He had met the test ; he had had the heaven 
gaze — he saw the miracle. 

Then he rent off his own robe, took up the 
mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, 
smote the waters of Jordan and said, "Where 
is the Lord God of Elijah ?" The river opened 
before him and he passed through to the 
other side. The theological students at Jeri- 
cho who had stood afar off when the two men 
went down into Jordan came forward to meet 
him and testified that they were sure the 
spirit of Elijah was now in the world and that 
it was resting upon Elisha ; but while they be- 
lieved the spirit of Elijah was in the world 
they did not believe the body of Elijah was in 
heaven. They were sure the body was lying 
somewhere on the rocks of the mountain or 
in some secluded valley, and they said to him : 

"Behold now, there be with thy servants 
fifty strong men; let them go, we pray thee, 
and seek thy master; lest peradventure the 
spirit of the Lord hath taken him up, and cast 
him upon some mountain or in some valley." 
And he said: 

"Ye shall not send." 

But the students urged and insisted to such 
a degree that the body of Elijah could be 
found on the earth; they were so anxious to 



JERICHO THEOLOGY 99 

demonstrate that the body of Elijah had not 
gone to heaven and that, in reality, Elijah 
himself was not there, that Elisha grew 
ashamed, yielded up his testimony and bade 
them go. 

The Theological college at Jericho there- 
fore sent out fifty men, and for three days they 
sought the body of Elijah and found him not. 

That is the story. 

It is full of suggestions. 

1. There were five great facts in this clos- 
ing hour of Elijah's ministry which ushered 
in the ministry of Elisha. 

These five facts were : 

The going of Elijah down into Jordan. 

The coming up of Elijah out of Jordan in 
his living body. 

The ascension of Elijah in that living body 
to heaven. 

The committal of the mantle of Elijah to 
Elisha. 

The descent of the spirit of Elijah upon 
Elisha in a double instalment. 

These five great facts are prophetic symbols 
of the five great facts in the ministry of the 
Son of God, ushering in the ministry of the 
Church. To begin with, the very name of 
Elijah is prophetic. It signifies God — the 
Lord. It sets forth him who is the second per- 
son of the adorable Trinity, the Son of God 
and God the Son. It is the declaration that he 
would come into this world, create for himself 



100 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

a distinct human nature, consisting of a real 
body and a rational soul, unite it to his eternal 
personality, and stamping upon it the seal of 
divinity, walk through the earth as the living 
God enthroned in humanity. 

The going down of Elijah into Jordan is the 
going down of the Son of God under the judg- 
ment of the cross. 

The word Jordan signifies judgment. 

On the cross Jesus died not as a martyr, not 
as one who came ahead of his time and was 
"torn in pieces" by the whirling wheel of the 
world's evil ; he died there as the great Crimi- 
nal of the universe, as one who was made sin, 
as the second man bearing the evil that 
was potentially in the first man. On that cross 
the wrath of God, the antipodes of light to 
darkness, of truth to falsehood, of holiness to 
sin, of God to the devil, swept down in a flood 
tide of billowing, overwhelming judgment. A' 
judgment of which he himself speaks antici- 
patively through the lips of the Psalmist when 
he cries, "All thy waves and thy billows are 
gone over me." It was that judgment, the 
agony of which he anticipatively portrays 
through the lips of the prophet Jeremiah where 
he bursts forth in his lamentations, "Is it 
nothing to you, all ye that pass by ? behold and 
see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, 
which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord 
hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. 
From above hath hg sent fire into my bones 



JERICHO THEOLOGY 101 

* * * the yoke of my transgressions is 
bound by his hand * * * he hath made 
my strength to fail." It was that moment of 
which the Apostle speaks when he says, "He 
hath made him to be sin for us." 

If you want to see Jordan do not go to the 
margin of the river that flows by Jericho — but 
there — outside the gates of Jerusalem. Behold 
three crosses, fix your gaze upon the center 
one, contemplate Him, the Crucified, the per- 
fect man, the sinless Son, the suffering substi- 
tute, swallowed up in the anguish of eternal 
judgment, crying out till the heavens turn 
black and the earth seems to reel — "My God! 
My God ! why hast thou forsaken me ?" 

That is the river of Jordan. 

And just as that river of Jordan was the 
terminus ad quern in the earthly ministry of 
Elijah, so was the cross of Christ the terminus 
ad quern in his ministry. Jesus Christ did not 
come into the world to live. He came to die. 
He came to die not as a martyr, but as the 
fulfilment of the eternal, covenant purpose of 
God, as a penal sacrifice, a sin-offering — as a 
lamb to slaughter led. 

The going up of Elijah out of Jordan alive 
in his body is the resurrection of our Lord 
Jesus Christ. Not a resurrection such as the 
modern theologian would teach — a resurrection 
in the spirit. Who ever saw a dead spirit? 
Only that which can die can be raised from the 
dead. The body alone can die. The body 



102 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

alone can be raised from the dead. Resurrec- 
tion can be predicated of the body alone. If 
men are determined to repudiate the bodily 
resurrection of Christ let them, for the sake 
of philological decency at least, cut out the 
word "resurrection" altogether. 

But the Spirit of God allows no mis-chance 
about the resurrection of Christ. It paints the 
scene and circumstances of that resurrection. 
Look at him in that little room on the Sunday 
night after he has risen from the dead. Hear 
how he exhorts the startled disciples who are 
inclined at the behest of their natural minds to 
look upon him as a spirit, as a ghost. Listen 
to his tremendous statement, "A spirit hath 
not flesh and bones as ye see me have !" Mark 
how he shows his hands and his feet and bids 
them touch him, handle him. Mark the im- 
mense climax when he sits down at the table 
of their untouched supper and eats before 
them broiled fish and an honey-comb. There 
may be limitless possibilities of spiritualization 
in the word "fish," but "broiled" fish ! that ad- 
jective falls like a crushing weight on any 
attempt at it. 

The going up out of Jordan in the body is 
Elijah's fore-picture of the resurrection of 
Christ in the body in which he died. 

The ascension of Elijah into heaven is the 
setting forth of that sublime moment when 
yonder at Bethany Jesus stepped into the 



JERICHO THEOLOGY 103 

chariot of shekina! glory and was swept up- 
ward to the heaven of heavens. 

Come all ye romancers, poets, painters, sing- 
ers, composers of music's loftiest score, and 
portray that moment when the Son of God 
went upward through the stellar spaces amid 
the onlook of the countless hosts of angelic 
witnesses to the throne of God. 

A man in the glory ! that was the meaning of 
Elijah's ascension in his living body to heaven. 

A man in the glory! that is the immense 
fact now. 

Jesus, the man in the glory. The man who 
once walked on earth. The man who died for 
men. The man seated yonder on the highest 
throne in the body which was nailed to the 
tree. 

The committal of Elijah's mantle to Elisha. 

What is a mantle but a habit? What is a 
habit but a symbol of character ? When Elisha 
went forth in the mantle of Elijah he was 
going forth representatively in the character 
of Elijah. 

Behold the truth ! Jesus communicating his 
life and character to the Church. 

When Elisha went forth clothed with the 
mantle of Elijah he seemed like a reincarna- 
tion of Elijah. 

Behold the great truth! The miracle that 
has been taking place for two thousand years 
under our eyes, the reappearance of Christ in 
his Church, the reappearance of Christ in 



104 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

Christianity, the reappearance of Christ in the 
individual Christian. 

The reincarnation of Christ! 

That is what the mantle of Elijah committed 
to Elisha means. 

The Church a witness that while Christ in 
his own proper body is on the throne, he is in 
Spirit in the Body which is called the Church ; 
and by that Spirit in the individual Christian, 
as it is written: "Christ in you the hope of 
glory." 

The descent of the spirit of Elijah upon 
Elisha — the descent of the spirit of a man in 
heaven upon a man on the earth ! 

Elisha going about in the earth under the 
direction of a man in the heavens ! Surely this 
is the descent of the Spirit of Christ to the 
Church. 

The Church is to go forth to the world 
wearing the character of the man in heaven, 
directed and governed by his spirit. 

The spirit coming upon Elisha in a double 
portion or instalment is the two-fold gift of 
the Holy Ghost. 

The Holy Ghost was given in a two-fold 
way. 

On the day our Lord rose from the dead he 
ascended directly to heaven. He did not wait 
for the forty days to elapse. In the morning 
he forbade Mary to touch him, for he said, "I 
am not yet ascended to my Father; but go 
to my brethren, and say to them, I am ascend- 



JERICHO THEOLOGY 105 

ing unto my Father, and your Father ; and to 
my God and your God." In the evening he 
permitted his disciples to touch him. In the 
meantime he had ascended to heaven and re- 
turned. Then he breathed upon them and 
said, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost." 

This is really the committal of the mantle 
of Elijah — this is regeneration. Forty days 
afterward he ascended publicly from the midst 
of his disciples. This two-fold ascension is in 
fulfilment of the typical act of the high-priest 
on the day of atonement when he went twice 
within the vail. 

The descent of the Holy Spirit on the day 
of Pentecost is the second instalment or the 
doubling of the portion of the Holy Ghost 
The first being the giving of the Comforter, 
the last the endowment, the Church going forth 
in the authority and power of the man in 
heaven, in the authority and power of his 
spirit. 

The cross, resurrection, ascension to and 
session in heaven, regeneration and the endue- 
ment of the Spirit, these are what the five facts 
in Elijah's ministry foretold; and these five 
great anti-typical facts in the history of Christ 
constitute the pentateuchal ordination of the 
Church, her ordination to the ministry and 
service of Christ on earth. 

2. The theological college at Jericho, presi- 
dent, faculty and students, accepted the pres- 
ence of the spirit of Elijah in the world, but 



106 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

repudiated the presence of the living body of 
Elijah in heaven. 

In this the Jericho college gave a fore-view 
of the attitude of some theological colleges 
to-day, and sets forth the movement of the 
modern theological idea. 

The modern theologians admit the presence 
of the Spirit of Christ in the world. 

They talk a great deal about the Spirit of 
Christ. 

They see the Spirit of Christ in every human 
being. 

The Spirit of Christ is in the church and out- 
side of the church. 

The Spirit of Christ moves in varied direc- 
tions. 

The telegraph, the telephone, wireless teleg- 
raphy and rapid transit are the results of the 
Spirit of Christ. When a man paints a great 
picture, or composes a wonderful opera ; when 
an actor portrays a character to the very life — 
these have been inspired by the Spirit of Christ. 

The Spirit of Christ, it is said, is filling the 
world with righteousness. Every man who is 
good and honest and brave-hearted, whether he 
believes in Jesus or not, is inspired and led by 
the Spirit of Christ* 

The Spirit of Christ is seeking to give us 
woman's suffrage; it is raising the voice of 
men against war ( and that too in spite of the 
fact that Jesus himself warns us that until he 
comes back to the world there will be wars 



JERICHO THEOLOGY 107 

and rumors of wars), it is calling for pure 
politics, for clean municipalities; in short, 
everything that is good in man, all civilization, 
all education, science, philosophy and art; 
whatever is broadening and uplifting man on 
lines of self-development is the Spirit of 
Christ. 

An examination of the matter will show, 
however, that it is not exclusively the Spirit of 
Christ, but rather the Spirit that was in Christ. 
In other words it is nothing less than evolution 
under a taking name. It is the old doctrine 
of Cain come to town again ; it is offering the 
fruits of the earth, man bringing out the best 
things in his own life and evolving God-ward. 
It is the devil's lie repeated with increased ac- 
cent, "ye shall be as gods." It is the claim that 
every man by nature is really a Christ of God, 
a son of the Most High; and that he is ful- 
filling the function of a son as much when he 
invents a mowing-machine as when he lifts 
the voice of prayer or walks in holiness before 
his God. 

But while the modern theologian thus glori- 
fies the natural spirit in man as the Spirit of 
Christ, he persistently repudiates the thought 
that Christ himself is seated in a living body 
on the throne of God in heaven. 

To him such an idea is an absurdity. 

The Christ he preaches never rose from the 
dead in the body in which he died. 

The Christ he preaches has no body. 



108 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

His Christ is a boneless and fleshless Christ. 

His Christ is an immaterial ghost. 

A ghost Christ! that is the Christ of the 
modern theologian. 

Over the doors of some modern theological 
institutions might well be written the words, 
"The Ghost Christ." 

Over the pulpit of some modern preachers 
might be written these words, "Preachers of 
the Ghost Christ." 

3. The theological college at Jericho under- 
took to explain the miraculous disappearance 
of Elijah's body on rational and natural 
grounds. 

They were influenced undoubtedly by th« 
town in which they lived. They lived in 
Jericho. 

Jericho in Scripture signifies the world. It 
is the symbol of all that is unspiritual. 

To-day the new is as the old. To-day the 
advanced theologian seeks to explain the mi- 
raculous elements in the story of Christ on 
natural grounds. Let me give you an illus- 
tration : 

It was a class in New Testament Greek. 

The subject was the casting out of the 
demons from the man who had a legion. The 
story was read how the man came to Jesus in 
rags and tatters and with his broken fetters. 
In answer to Jesus' question he states that his 
name is Legion; that many demons possessed 
him. When Jesus bids them come out of the 



JERICHO THEOLOGY 109 

man they beseech him that he will not send 
them back into Hades but permit them to go 
into the swine. Jesus permits them, they enter 
the swine and the herd rushes down the hill- 
side into the lake and perishes. 

"Now," said the professor, "gentlemen, it is 
our duty to accommodate this story to modern 
thought. We must give it modern terminology. 
To begin with, there are no such things as 
demons. No one is obsessed or possessed by 
the disembodied spirit of another. The man 
was a lunatic. He was possessed with all sorts 
of wrong and troublesome ideas. Jesus recog- 
nized this. He at once exercised his power of 
calmness, of self-control. He spoke in a kind 
but firm voice. This at once quieted the man 
and he yielded to the influence of Jesus." 

A persistent member of the class spoke up : 

"But, professor, do you mean to say that the 
thoughts of this man went out into those hogs 
and led them to commit suicide ?" 

There was a pause. Then the professor 
smiled and said: 

"My dear sir, that part of the story must be 
interpreted according to modern thought. This 
man found himself suddenly calmed under the 
quieting influence of Jesus. At that moment 
the swine — for some unknown reason — some 
sudden fright, no doubt — of their own accord 
rushed into the lake. The man was still in a 
degree under the motions of his former estate 
and imagined that the mad rush of the swin^ 



t!0 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

had something to do with his deliverance. 
Perhaps he said something to that effect after- 
wards, and so the story grew." 

At another time the subject before the New 
Testament class in Greek was that moment 
when Jesus walked on the water and Peter 
asked permission to do the same; how for a 
moment he did succeed in walking on the 
waves but when he saw they were boisterous 
became afraid, began to sink and called on 
Jesus to save him. 

The modern professor's explanation was the 
following : 

"Jesus did not walk on the water at all. He 
was walking on the shore. A mist rose up to 
about the height of his knees. To those- on the 
little boat it looked as though he were walking 
on the water." 

The persistent member of the class broke 
out: 

"But, professor, how do you explain the fact 
that Peter walked upon the water and then 
began to sink?" 

The professor smiled the calm smile of as- 
sured authority and replied: 

"They were not far from the shore. The 
water was shallow. It was filled with long, 
sedgy grass. When Peter stepped out into the 
water this long floating grass in a measure 
held him up, It seemed to him that he was on 
the waves, Presently he lost his nerve, he 



JERICHO THEOLOGY 111 

began to slip and slide. He thought he was 
sinking and cried out for help." 

No matter where such a college may be, 
whether in New York, Chicago or New Eng- 
land, it is a Jericho college. The theology is 
Jericho theology and the professors are Jericho 
professors. 

They are influenced by the Jericho environ- 
ment; by scientific thought, by modernism. 

It is an endeavor to bring the truth of God 
down to the level of the world's atmosphere. 

It is a systematic endeavor to apologize for 
the professed blunders and mistakes of the 
Bible. 

It is a cultured effort to satisfy the infidelity 
of the hour with something suited to its palate. 

It is an organized effort to surrender the 
church of Christ to the world, the flesh and 
the devil. 

The next time you hear a preacher telling 
his audience that we must translate the the- 
ology of the New Testament into modern 
terminology; that we must accommodate our 
theology to the scientific spirit; that we must 
bring the exposition of the Bible into line with 
the twentieth century thought, you may know 
that you are listening to a Jericho preacher; 
no matter whether he is native born or im- 
ported, he is a Jericho preacher from a Jericho 
college, giving you Jericho theology. 

4. The Jericho theologians became so urgent 
and made such a clamor about going out to 



112 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

prove that Elijah's body did not ascend to 
heaven that Elisha became ashamed — and 
yielded his testimony to theirs. 

There were circumstances which combined 
to produce this surrender. 

The Jericho theologians had the prestige of 
professed scholarship and trained mentality. 
They had erected themselves into a final court 
of judgment. They looked with the same con- 
tempt upon a worker for God who had not 
passed through their doors as a West Point 
graduate does upon a volunteer. They fixed 
the interpretation and repudiated everything 
and everyone who did not go along with their 
decision. 

Elisha never had time to go to the Jericho 
college. The Lord called him from the field, 
the furrow and the plow, and bade him enter 
on his ministry at once. When therefore the 
men of the college insisted that he really did 
not know what he was talking about; that he 
was crassly ignorant in proclaiming such a 
thing as that the body of a man was living in 
heaven on the throne of God, he hesitated and 
surrendered. 

The modern theologians have erected them- 
selves into a court of final judgment. They 
look with a feeling of easy contempt on those 
who have not passed through the doors of their 
Alma Mater. They set up the standard of 
exposition. They talk continually of their own 
scholarship. They exploit it at every turn. 



JERICHO THEOLOGY 113 

They batter the ignorance of those who differ 
with them. Their sacramental phrase is, 
"Scholarship is agreed." To listen to them 
one might well believe that when they die 
knowledge will die with them. It is this small 
body of men which gets the hearing of the 
journals. It is their sermons and writings 
which are spread in great head-lines in dailies 
and magazines. Their theology is of the 
world. The world loves its own and welcomes 
them to its realm of attention and literature. 

When these men begin to denounce as ig- 
norance that preaching which stands for a 
literal resurrection and the actual session of 
an embodied Christ in heaven, those preachers 
who have been called from the plow, and 
those even who have come from the Bethel 
seminaries, hesitate, shiver, become ashamed, 
and yield their testimony, or hold it more and 
more in abeyance; and more and more make 
manifest that they are ashamed to proclaim the 
old faith. 

It is an amazing thing that any preacher 
taught of God should be ashamed to point to the 
Christ of God clothed with the body in which 
he once hung upon the tree, now seated on the 
throne of the universe, the guaranty of re- 
demption and the prophecy of coming glory. 

5. The acceptance by Elisha of the doctrine 
of the Jericho theologians and the going forth 
of the fifty men from the college to prove if 
they could that the body of Elijah was not in 



114 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

heaven — presents an incongruous spectacle. 

It was an incongruous thing that men who 
had given themselves up to the study of God's 
Word should now be going out to demonstrate 
that there was no final miracle in the history 
of God's prophet. 

It is an incongruous spectacle to-day that 
ministers of Christ should be seeking with all 
the genius in them to demonstrate that there 
is nothing miraculous in Christianity. 

And yet these are the kind of preachers that 
the theological colleges are sending to us, ask- 
ing us to ordain them, to open our pulpits to 
them. 

What do you think of a preacher who 
stands in the pulpit of a Christian church and 
in the name of Christ denies his virgin birth? 

What do you think of a preacher who by 
that denial puts a bar sinister on the name of 
the mother of Jesus and sends her down the 
ages as nothing better than a fallen woman? 

What do you think of a preacher who by 
that denial sends Jesus Christ before the gaze 
of his audience as a fatherless bastard, as an 
illegitimate son ? 

What do you think of a preacher who de- 
nies the death of Christ as an atoning sacrifice 
and makes that cross no better than a commoi> 
murder or a brutal barbarism? 

jWhat do you think of a preacher who denies 
that Jesus Christ rose from the dead in the 
body in which he died; a preacher who 



JERICHO THEOLOGY 115 

preaches that Jesus Christ is nothing more 
than a bodiless ghost, a formless phantom? 

What do you think of a preacher who denies 
that on yonder throne is sitting a glorified, 
immortal man, upholding all things by the 
word of his power. The God who became 
man, the man who was, and is, none other than 
God. 

What do you think of a preacher who laughs 
at the doctrine of hell and testifies that men 
are not so much in danger of hell as they are 
of the theology which proclaims it; preachers 
who teach that all men are by nature the sons 
of God and that no son of man can be lost? 

What do you think of the preacher who 
teaches that the great work of the church is 
saving the world socially and not individually ; 
that the true call of the church is social and 
not personal redemption? 

What do you think of the preacher who 
stumbles at the miracles of the Bible but is 
ready to go on all-fours after spiritualism; 
who would consider himself childish if he ac- 
cepted the stories of Genesis, but who is ready 
to sit the night out in a mediumistic seance 
waiting for communications from the unseen 
world ? 

What do you think of the preacher who is 
not certain that the Bible gives clear state- 
ments concerning the hereafter, but is ready to 
shout himself hoarse over the fact that scien- 
tists have now actually concluded that man has 
a soul? 



1 1 6 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

What do you think of a preacher who pro- 
tests against bibliolatry, against surrendering 
completely to the written Word, and yet looks 
upon every utterance of Herbert Spencer as 
the very breath of the Almighty? 

And yet these are the kind of men the Jeri- 
cho colleges are sending us, asking us to or- 
dain them, open our pulpits to them, give our 
churches to their sway. 

Men who spend four or five years at college 
that they may learn how to prove to us that 
there was nothing more divine in Jesus Christ 
than what is possible in any other natural man. 

Men who spend four or five years in college 
that they may scientifically demonstrate that 
the body of Jesus of Nazareth still mingles 
with the dust of Palestine. 

Men who spend four or five years at college 
that they may be able to prove that the church 
is no more supernatural than any other benevo- 
lent or beneficial association. 

Men who spend these years at college that 
they may demonstrate that however much the 
religion of Jesus may be superior in morality 
to all others, it is not more divine. 

Men who spend their years at college in 
order that they may afterwards teach com- 
parative religion to their churches and show 
that Christianity is superior merely upon its 
ethical, its moral side; that at bottom it is 
founded on no better miracles than the super- 
stitious records of other faiths. 



JERICHO THEOLOGY 1 1 7 

Men who really in their heart of hearts do 
not believe in the Bible as the living Word of 
God. 

These are the men the Jericho colleges of 
the twentieth century are turning out; and it 
is this ministry inspired by Jericho, a ministry 
coming in the name of Christ, that presents 
the most incongruous spectacle of the times. 

6. The theological seminary at Jericho was 
an actual menace and peril to the ministry of 
Elisha. 

Think what it meant to Elisha if Elijah did 
not ascend to heaven in his living body. 

If Elijah did not ascend thither then it was 
an open question whether he had ever crossed 
Jordan. Elisha might well question whether 
it had not been after all a matter of imagina- 
tion on his part to think so. 

Nay! he might well question whether he 
had any right to go forth in the name of 
Elijah at all. 

Indeed the truth is he did not. 

So long as the Jericho theologians were pro- 
claiming that the body of Elijah could not be 
in heaven Elisha did not stir out of Jericho. 
He held his peace. His ministry in the name 
of Elijah was paralyzed. 

And the application is easy enough. 

If Jesus Christ does not sit in his real body 
on yonder throne in heaven, then he never rose 
from the dead in that body. If he did not rise 
from the dead in his body, the body that had 



118 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

been nailed to the tree, then his death on that 
cross was not accepted of God as a sacrificial 
atonement. As on that cross he professed to 
assume our sins, then he did not discharge 
them, and those who have confessed him say- 
ing he "bare our sins in his own body on the 
tree", are still under their judgment. 

The Apostle tells us that if Christ did not 
rise in the very body in which he was buried, 
then all preaching in his name is vain and 
those who have fallen asleep confessing their 
faith upon him have perished. 

If Christ continued to exist after death sim- 
ply as a spirit and not in his body, then he did 
not meet the full term and sentence of death, 
and immortality, so far from being in the light, 
is plunged into the deepest blackness of a 
starless midnight. 

Nay, more! surrender to Jericho theology 
means the paralysis of the Jericho preacher 
himself. He becomes filled with doubts which 
find no limit, which extend over every range 
of professed truth. He becomes a peddler of 
other men's thoughts, of their doubts and 
guesses. He speaks no longer with authority 
as did his Master ; he speaks as the scribes and 
the pharisees. There is nothing certain about 
him but his uncertainty — and those who hear 
him become like him — totally paralyzed in re- 
lation to the supernatural and the divine. 

Let this surrender to Jericho theology con- 
tinue for the next twenty-five years and the 



JERICHO THEOLOGY 119 

Bible will be practically repudiated from the 
pulpit, the church as a supernatural organiza- 
tion will cease to exist ; it will become, on the 
one side, a club for rich men and women 
wherein they may gather to congratulate them- 
selves on their moral tendencies, satisfy their 
conscience with gifts to the poor and bequests 
to educational establishments for the increas- 
ing culture and spiritual blindness of the nat- 
ural man; on the other side, the church will 
drift into a social organization for the discus- 
sion of social inequalities and wrongs. 

Jericho theology means the overthrow of 
New Testament Christianity and the faith once 
for all delivered to the saints. 

Note finally: 

7. Elisha's ministry became a ministry of 
power only when he repudiated the Jericho 
theology. 

Only when he repudiated the Jericho the- 
ology, turned his back on Jericho, and re- 
affirmed his testimony concerning the living 
body of Elijah in heaven, did his ministry be- 
come one of power and bear seal that it was 
heaven-sent. 

There will be no supernatural power in the 
church of Christ till the church rises up like a 
unit to repudiate Jericho theology. 

Let the churches refuse to open their pulpits 
to any preacher who denies the virgin birth 
of Christ, the atoning sacrifice of his death, 
the resurrection of the body and his ascension 



120 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

in that body to the throne of God. Let the 
churches refuse to ordain any man who does 
not believe in the virgin birth of Christ, his 
sacrificial death, his resurrection in the body 
in which he died, and his ascension in that 
body to the throne of God. Let the churches 
refuse to ordain any man who questions the 
integrity of Holy Scripture; and who in the 
name of modernism and under the guise of 
scientific thought would fill the church of 
Christ with the poison of natural infidelity. 

Let the churches refuse to give one dollar to 
support the Jericho colleges. 

Let the churches feel that it would be a 
blessing of blessings if every Jericho college 
in the land was razed to the ground. 

Let no enlightened Christian be deceived. 

The present condition in the theological 
world has been foretold and the church long 
ago warned. 

Listen to the Apostle in his letter to Timo- 
thy. He says: 

"The time is coming when they will not en- 
dure sound doctrine ; but after their own lusts 
shall they heap to themselves teachers, having 
itching ears; and they shall turn away their 
ears from the truth, and shall be turned to 
fables." 

The denials of the truth, the repudiation of 
the Word — these things are of themselves its 
verification ; they are the fulfilment of what it 
has foretold. And because the Word has told 



JERICHO THEOLOGY 121 

us that this condition would prevail character- 
istically in the last times, on the threshold of 
the closing of the age, we may be well assured 
that the Coming of the Lord draweth nigh. 

Do earnest men ask for the remedy, the 
antidote to Jericho theology? Let them listen 
to the admonition of the Apostle Paul to a 
preacher, to Timothy himself. He says: 

"Preach the Word." 

When darkness comes we turn on the light. 

Let the church have the truth. 

Let them have the truth of God without any 
apology or accommodation. 

Let the preacher heed the admonition of the 
Apostle : 

"Study to show thyself approved to God; a 
workman that needeth not to be ashamed, 
rightly dividing the Word of Truth." 

Expound the Word; expose it, turn out its 
contents ; show the individual how to read it 
and according to its own directions. Let him 
see that each book of the Bible has its own 
key hung up by the door; that these different 
parts of the Bible have an organic relation to 
each other. Teach the hearer that this book 
is not to be read in the light of the wisdom of 
some modern Jericho professor, but in the 
light of God; even as it is written, "In thy 
light we shall see light"; and again: "The 
entrance of thy Word giveth light." 

Give to men the "I know" and the "I am 
persuaded," the absolute assurances of the 



122 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

Word. Let the hearer have a "Thus saith the 
Lord" and not the assumptions and fake 
guesses of men. 

Nothing will so antidote and render nil the 
poison of Jericho theology, Jericho seminaries 
and Jericho preachers, as the unadulterated 
Word of God itself. 



THE NEW RELIGION 



or 



Athenian Culture and Christianity 



"For the Athenians and strangers which 
were there, spent their time in nothing else, 
but to tell or hear some new thing." — Acts 
17: 21. 

Paul was at Athens. Everywhere he saw 
art. He saw it in architecture, in temple and 
statue. The statues were those of the gods. 
The gods represented the religion and the 
philosophy of the Greeks. As Paul contem- 
plated them his heart was stirred within him 
because of the ignorance and superstition 
they revealed. Although he had intended to 
make Athens but a temporary stopping-place, 
he could not be still. He had a message to de- 
liver. He went into the Jewish synagogue 
and preached there. He went into the forum 
and whenever he could find any one to listen 
to him, he preached Jesus and the resurrec- 
tion. On one occasion certain philosophers 
who met daily in the stoa or porch of the 
temple and were known as the Stoics, en- 
countered him. At first they made light of 
him and then, finally, invited him to go into 
the Areopagus and tell his story there. The 



124 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

motive of that invitation is to be found in the 
words of the text : "For the Athenians and the 
strangers which were there, spent their time in 
nothing else, but either to tell or hear some 
new thing." This is the Athenian spirit. It 
has two marked characteristics, to tell and to 
hear some new thing. The spirit of Athens is 
the spirit of human culture, progress and in- 
quiry. That spirit is in our midst to-day. It 
is still marked by the dual characteristic, to 
tell and to hear some new thing. Recently it 
has told us what it deems to be a new thing. 
Through one of its most representative and 
university heads it has told us of a new re- 
ligion befitting the twentieth century, befitting 
its culture, development and intellectual worth. 

1. A careful analysis of the official report of 
the address in which this new religion was pre- 
sented gives at least twelve propositions. 

It will be a religion without authority. 

It will therefore set aside the Bible as the 
inspired, infallible Word of God. 

It will refuse to deify remarkable human 
personages. 

As a consequence it will reject the deity of 
Christ. It will deny his virgin birth and will 
categorize his generation on the basis of nat- 
ural parentage. 

It will be monotheistic. 

That is to say, it will be Unitarian. It will 
not tolerate the doctrine of the Trinity. All 
covenant obligations and promises flowing out 



THE NEW RELIGION 125 

of the operation of Father, Son and Holy 
Spirit, as distinctive personalities in the unity 
of the god-head, will be cast aside. 

It will not accept the intercession of any 
personal intermediary between God and man. 

It will, necessarily, deny the priesthood and 
heavenly intercession of Christ. And as priest- 
hood is inseparably based on sacrificial and 
atoning death, it will deny the death of the 
cross as an atoning sacrifice. It will teach that 
the death of the cross was a useless and brutal 
murder; that the death of Christ was not a 
necessity, and that no human being has ever 
been redeemed by his blood. 

It will not believe in original sin. 

It will not believe that God created man 
originally upright, gave him free and inde- 
pendent choice and that, perverting his will, he 
fell into a state of sin in which he is helpless 
to move towards holiness and God. Logically, 
it will deny regeneration, or the necessity of 
a new and spiritual birth, and will set up 
the doctrine of its opposite — the doctrine of 
evolution. It will teach that man finds his 
root in lowest animal forms and has come up 
through manifold brute ways to his present 
position and, by the same law, is moving up- 
ward on moral, spiritual and intellectual lines. 

It will look upon the ancient ordinances of 
the church as useless baggage. 

Baptism, which is intended primarily to set 
forth the death, burial and resurrection of our 



126 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

Lord and, secondarily, the identification of 
the believer in that death, burial and resur- 
rection; the Lord's Supper, intended to be 
a constant memorial of the solemn passover 
of the cross and to teach continually that our 
only ground of approach to God is through 
the blood of sacrifice ; baptism and the Lord's 
Supper, these ordinances will be relegated to 
the dump-heap of meaningless and fossilifer- 
ous rites. 

The new religion will not hold out the 
hope of future compensation for present ills. 

It will repudiate the promised joys and 
measureless felicities of Heaven. No sound 
of harpers harping with their harps will ever 
fall upon the ears of the members of this 
new church. The chant of angelic choirs 
floating downward from some uplifted dome 
of glory will never stir and thrill their souls. 
A holy city with its jasper walls, its streets 
of gold and its gates of pearl, the tree and 
the river of life, will be smiled away as the 
childish dream of a crude and perfervid 
imagination. All the rewards of a cloudless 
and endless to-morrow held out so persistently 
by Christ and his apostles jwill be counted as 
so many bright but deceitful fancies. 

The minister of the new religion will not be 
a man who shall stand up like the Apostle Paul 
and preach Jesus and the resurrection. He 
will be the graduate of a medical college, a 



THE NEW RELIGION 127 

clear-headed diagnostician, a skilful surgeon, 
a family practitioner. 

His instrumentalities will not be the Bible 
and the hymn book, but the scalpel, the knife, 
the saw of the surgeon and the materia 
medica of the physician. 

The new religion will not offer a remedy 
to meet the needs of the soul. 

Its aim will be the cure of the body. 

Its instrumentalities will be the pharmaco- 
poeia of the druggist, the appliances of the 
operating room and the atmosphere of a mod- 
ern hospital. It will take away such texts as, 
"Come unto me all ye that labor and are 
heavy laden and I will give you rest." "Thou 
wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is 
stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee." 
All testimony which paints a glowing heaven 
and a returning immortal man, coming back 
to the earth which once rejected him, coming 
to speak the word that shall make the dust to 
bloom with immortality for every buried saint, 
such a concept, and all the words which speak 
of it, will be looked upon as the rhapsodical 
sentimentality and meaningless vagaries of 
ignorance and superstition. 

This new religion will present to every man 
a God who shall be a "multiplication of 
infinities." 

Repeat the phrase and roll it again and again 
through the chambers of your mind. It is a 
sacramental phrase of the new religion It is 



128 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

one of the chief accents in the professed new- 
ness of its nomenclature. 

"The multiplication of infinities !" 

It is said that when Whitefield repeated in 
sonorous accentuation the word, "Mesopota- 
mia," the vast audience thrilled under its vi- 
bration. With an immense apology to 
Whitefield I would repeat the sonority and 
cadenced graduation of this distinctively new 
and felicitous phrase, "The multiplication of 
infinities." 

I confess it is altogether beyond me and, 
so far as I know, beyond any one else, even 
its inventor; for, it is to be remembered, this 
new religion claims to be monotheistic. Mono- 
theism is the doctrine of a God who is one 
and infinite. But a God who is the multipli- 
cation of infinities must be the multiplication 
of an infinite God; and such a multiplication, 
mathematically, and on the basic line of sim- 
plest logic, must give us the multiplication of 
infinite Gods. But a multiplication of infinite 
Gods who after all are one infinite God, sug- 
gests a jig-saw puzzle by the side of which 
the ancient doctrine of one God who is Father, 
Son and Holy Spirit, is as simple as a child's 
first proposition in a, b, c. Such a religion so 
far from being monotheistic is, in the last 
analysis, polytheistic — and more so. 

The new religion will have no dogma, no 
creed or doctrine. 

There will be no definition, nothing dis- 



THE NEW RELIGION 129 

tinct or certified which any one may be called 
to believe. It will be a free-for-all, a go-as- 
you-please, in a mental stadium where there 
is no starting point and where there can be 
no winning goal. 

Finally, this new religion will be social and 
co-operative. 

It will deal wholly with the present, with the 
here instead of the there, with the life that 
now is, and not with that which is to come. 
It will not be taken up with the city above, 
but the city below, with the present and real 
world, and not with the future and uncertain 
world. 

This is the new religion ! 

A religion that repudiates Christianity, de- 
nies the Christ of the New Testament and 
finds the Bible (at present the best "seller" in 
the world) too antiquated for a five-foot shelf 
and unequal to the demand of modern times. 

2. This new religion is not new. 

From the beginning of Christianity it has 
walked side by side with it as a darkling 
shadow. Read Church history and you will 
find every proposition quoted on the lips of 
its opponents : men who were counted as in- 
tellectual giants in their day, who stood up 
and denied the virgin birth of Christ, re- 
pudiated the atoning sacrificial character of 
his death, laughed uproariously at the thought 
that he had risen in his actual body from the 
dead, brushed aside the idea of his priesthood 



130 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

in heaven, and refused to believe that he would 
come to earth again as the resurrection and 
the life: men who taught that man comes up 
out' of, and from, the very nature of things, 
that he is the avatar of God, that humanity is 
the sum total of the divine expression, and 
that the racial man is moving onward and up- 
ward to that hour when by his knowledge of 
and his reciprocal relationship to nature's 
forces he will dominate them as nature's God 
and be the true and final personalism of the 
universe: men who were encountered and 
out-argued and their doctrines proven worse 
than worthless by the mightiest dialecticians 
and loftiest intellects the world has ever 
known either inside the church or out of it. 

There is not a proposition in the new re- 
ligion that is not at least two thousand years 
old. Some of these propositions are older 
still. Open the pages of your classics and 
you will find them there. 

There is nothing new in the new religion. 

And amid all the mass of ancient proposi- 
tions the one which seems to awaken the most 
enthusiasm among the admirers of the cult 
is that proposition which calls for love to 
God and love and service to man. 

(And this proposition is fundamental to 
Christianity. 

Go back to the days when Jesus walked the 
Judean hills or stood by blue Galilee. Mark 
that moment when a lawyer in the temple, 



THE NEW RELIGION 131 

seeking to entangle him in his talk, asked him 
what was the great commandment of the law, 
and Jesus answered and said: "Thou shalt 
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This 
is the first and the great commandment. And 
the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy 
neighbour as thyself. On these two com- 
mandments hang all the law and the prophets." 

This is fundamental to Christianity. 

But it rests upon a basis such as had never 
before been dreamed of in any religion or 
philosophy. 

What is the basis on which Christianity ap- 
peals that man shall love his God and his 
neighbour as himself? Turn over the pages of 
the New Testament. Do the apostles point to 
the wonders of creation and by these appeal 
to men to love their Creator — God? 

Do they point to the East where it turns 
to palest silver, then to rose, to amber, and 
anon to infinite blue, as the day is born? Do 
they bid men watch the evening sky as the 
sun goes down and all the heavens become a 
field of winrowed glories, or a vast extended 
plain where imperial cities burn and flame as 
though some great torch from an angel's 
careless hand had fallen amid its palaces and 
towers? Do they bid men cast their glances 
upward where the Via Lactea spans the mid- 
night zenith like a royal highway along which 
the chariot of the king has sped, flinging from 



132 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

the rim of its whirling wheels eighteen mil- 
lions of suns and systems like wind-blown 
dust of powdered stars? Do they point to 
this world keeping its course in an unfaltering 
orbit about the sun, so that day and night for 
two thousand years have not lost a degree 
between them? Do they point to the spire 
of grass and the cedar of Lebanon, the wave 
upon the shore, the flower upon the stem, and 
the mountain ridges bolting the spinning earth 
together and say, "Behold the concrete 
thoughts of God — the everlasting thinker?" 
Do they talk continually in teleological speech 
of the adaptation of means to an end, and tell 
you that every atom of earth is the revelation 
of a design and that every movement in 
heaven above and earth below and the very 
depths of inertia and silence themselves pro- 
claim a designer? Do they draw attention to 
the providences of God bending above the 
helpless sons of men and demonstrate that 
the movement of the seasons from spring time 
to winter is the opening of his hand ? 

Do they present these things and bid men 
because of them give forth their love to God? 

They do not. 

They waste neither energy nor time in such 
collocation of human speech. 

And they are wise! 

Let any man study nature. Let him study 
bacteriology, analyze the awful forms and 
forces of life pervading every square inch of 



THE NEW RELIGION 133 

what we are pleased to call space ; let him look 
at some monstrous squid, some foul and un- 
speakable octopus, and ask himself honestly 
whether the Being who could make such an ap- 
parently useless horror has not in himself some 
such tendence of all-enveloping destruction, 
some such impulse of almost impish power? 
Let him face the inequalities and contradictions 
in human life, its sorrows, its disappointments 
and despair ; let him look at the grave whither 
he is going with brain and thought enough to 
know that disease and death are the absolute 
discords of earth, and that without a moment's 
warning he may slip within the silence and 
the corruption of that grave with no power 
to win a ray of light from its darkness or one 
note from its hard and paralyzing silence ; let 
him study all this and know that above human 
heartache, sin and woe no face of God is seen 
looking down in pity, no hand is stretched out 
to touch and help; let him regard all this and 
analyze its meaning and he will spring to his 
feet and wonder with a shiver of horror in 
every lobe of his brain whether, after all, God 
is not a devil, a master of measureless power, 
a heartless aesthete, an infinite mathematician 
and machinist, an unfeeling personalism ab- 
sorbed in the contemplation of his fearful and 
inexplicable greatness, and wholly unconscious 
either of joy or sorrow, of life or death. 

Nay! the apostles never lay down a propo- 
sition which risks such conclusions. They 



134 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

never point to nature and providence. They 
point to the darkest and most terrible spot 
on earth, the center of unspeakable anguish 
and agony, crimson with blood and vocal with 
untranslatable horror — the Cross of Christ. 
They point to that cross and declare that in 
the broken heart of God's Son, by all the 
woe he suffered, by the cry wrung from his 
dry parched lips, we are to see, to feel, to hear 
and know, the revelation of infinite and meas- 
ureless love — the love of God ; that, in that 
hour, through ways of righteousness, in the 
execution of inexorable law, God was revealing 
his love; that, in that hour, God himself in 
the person of his Son was enduring the judg- 
ment of his own law of righteousness against 
the sin and sin nature of sinful man, and seek- 
ing a way by which he might be just and yet 
the justifier of him who should believe on 
Jesus. And these apostles cry out and say, 
"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but 
that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the 
propitiation for our sins," "He spared not his 
own Son but delivered him up for us all" ; and 
they cry, "God so loved the world, that he 
gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth in him should not perish, but have 
everlasting life." They ring the changes on 
the fact that it is because God so loved us 
and showed it in the substitution of his Son 
on our behalf that we ought to love him. 
And these apostles do well to do so. Love 



THE NEW RELIGION 135 

must reveal itself through sacrifice. He who 
really loves another must, if needs be, die for 
him. When we look at the cross we feel 
that God in some strange, sad way is there 
seeking for us. And even though in the end 
his effort had been a failure, we feel that 
through the fellowsnip of suffering he has re- 
vealed his infinite and all-embracing love. 

No! not the splendors of creation, not the 
wealth of divine providence reveal his love, 
but that cruel and mysterious cross of Cal- 
vary. 

And this cross of Calvary works. 

It works as the appeal to creatorship and 
providence can never work. 

It works indeed! Wherever that cross has 
been lifted up human hearts have been drawn 
as by an infinite magnet and lifted to God, 
the stoniest hearts have been melted and 
turned to hearts of flesh, and human love has 
poured itself forth in unceasing devotion to 
his name. And on the same basis of the sacri- 
ficial cross the New Testament writers appeal 
to Christians to love their fellows. If the 
infinite and holy God could come forth and 
take to himself a humanity in which he might 
die for us, how ought we for whom he 
died, "Children of wrath even as others," to 
love those who are in a category of antagon- 
ism to God no worse than our own. They say, 
"Hereby perceive we the love of God, BE- 



136 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

CAUSE HE LAID DOWN HIS LIFE FOR 
US." 

Mark it well ! ! 

God's love declared, not by creation's 
power and providential care, but by the un- 
speakable fact that HE LAID DOWN HIS 
LIFE FOR US. And then, because of this, 
comes the rest of that marvelous phrase, "And 
we ought to lay down our lives for the 
brethren." 

This proposition then of love to God and 
love and service to man, rests on the basis of 
the cross. On that basis Christianity has gone 
forth to the uttermost parts of the earth and 
appealed to the coldest hearts. On that basis 
it has moved the sons of men till a flame of 
love to God and love to man has burned in a 
ring of unselfish glory round the world. 

And the new religion takes this proposition 
from Christianity, takes it out of its divine 
connection, cuts it loose from its inspired 
basis and annexes it as its own. 

Let me show you the meanness of it. 

One May night I was in the Roman forum. 
I had spent the day wandering through the 
ruins of the Caesars' palace, I had climbed the 
Septizonium and looking across to the Alban 
hills had dreamed of the Sabine farm, of 
Horace and his splendid lines. I came down 
and passed where Paul stood before the 
Caesar, came out and, for a moment, halted 
and gazed at the glory sky as the sun passed 



THE NEW RELIGION 137 

slowly westward to Ostia and the sea. Here 
where I stood Cicero had flung his philippics 
against a Cataline. There was the sacred way 
ftust turning over the Velian hill, and in my 
mind was the vision of the pageants that had 
swept thence to the Capitoline crest. I passed 
under the arch of Titus and in the coming twi- 
light began to lose myself amid the intricacies 
of the once imperial city. Suddenly I found 
myself face to face with a low building of 
common construction, but united to it, in some 
incongruous fashion, the marble fragments of 
an ancient portico. Somewhere in the Middle 
Ages, in the internecine strife of the fallen 
city, this portico from a noble Roman temple 
had been rent from its true relation and 
annexed to this plebeian heap. 

And this is what the new religion has done. 

It has stolen the portico of love to God and 
love and service to man; it has torn it loose 
from the temple of divine Christianity and its 
basis of the sacrificial Christ and sought to 
build it into this clay hovel of human inven- 
tion, claim it as its own and call it new. 

New! 

Whatever there is of religious value, of 
spiritual suggestion or hope in the new re- 
ligion has been stolen, borrowed or garbled 
from Christianity. What there is in it that 
is iconoclastic and infidel, is simply old infidel- 
ity in a new suit of clothes, speaking English 
instead of Greek, and wearing the mortar- 



138 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

board hat and gown of an American Uni- 
versity president instead of the robe of a 
Greek or Latin philosopher. 

There is nothing new in the new religion. 

3. The fallacies of the new religion. 

It is a fallacy to seek to build a religion 
without authority. What is a religion without 
authority ? 

Let me ask, what is a government without 
authority? 

Look yonder at Louis XVI. in the Hotel de 
Ville. See how the mob put the red cap on 
his head, slap him on the back as a good fellow 
and shout liberty, fraternity and equality. 
Dignity and authority trampled under foot. 
The day that king allowed the women of the 
market, the brazen viragoes of the gutter, to 
draw him from Versailles to Paris, authority 
was thrown into the ditch and the transition 
from the palace of kings and the line of a 
thousand years of rule to the guillotine where 
the king lost his head and legitimate govern- 
ment came to an end, was a simple sequence 
to the hour when authority was dethroned. 

What is a religion without authority? 

Let me ask, what was the cause of the 
bloody war between the states? It was be- 
cause the word "nation" was spelt with a little 
n and the individual state with a large S, the 
one state of Virginia being able to borrow 
money at a cheaper rate than the government 
of the United States. The source of that fear- 



THE NEW RELIGION 139 

ful war was the lack of governmental author- 
ity. Not till the word "Nation" was written 
in crimson capital letters on the heights of 
Culp's hill at Gettysburg, and every white star 
in the blue field of the flag was made whiter by 
the purity of American patriotism; not till 
every red stripe was deepened by the heart's 
blood of the best life of this land; not till 
authority took the place of uncertain partner- 
ship, did this country draw the breath of a 
definite governmental life. 

What is a religion without authority? 

It is as a government without authority — it 
is anarchy, rebellion, confusion, conflict. 

What is religion without authority? 

It is as a man without backbone. There 
must be backbone, there must be framework 
on which to build muscle and tissue and or- 
gans if you would have a symmetrical, living 
man. 

Religion must have bones in it. It must be 
full of bones, and these bones must radiate 
from a central backbone. There must be a 
skeleton, a framework on which to build 
muscle and tissue and organ if you would have 
a symmetrical, living religion. 

To talk about a religion without authority 
is as childish as to talk about building a 
house without foundation, or tying a knot in a 
rope of sand. 

A religion without authority is an indescrib- 
able fallacy. 



140 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

It is fallacious to set up a religion which 
denies the deity of Christ. 

Admit that Christ was not God, then he 
was either the most arrant imposter the world 
ever knew or a poor, weak, degenerate, self- 
deceived brain. In either case he is not fit to 
be the head of a religion. 

And yet we are told with all seriousness that 
in proportion as we set aside the deity of 
Christ, relieve him from, the burden of mir- 
acles, bring him out of the realm of the super- 
natural and grade him in the category of a 
good, but natural man, we shall exalt him into 
the wider love and fuller apprehension of the 
sons of men. 

How can you exalt an impostor or a weak- 
ling in the estimation of men? And if Jesus 
Christ was not God he was one or the other. 

In the language of the street I might well 
say, "What are you giving us ?" Is it thought 
we have no books, that we are confined in our 
reading to a five-foot shelf, or that there are 
no thought forces outside the Areopagus of 
New England? 

It is a fallacy to seek to build a Christian 
religion which denies the Trinity. 

What is the Trinity? 

The next time God gives you one of those 
clear days which makes everything within you 
vital and vigorous, recognize it as due to the 
presence of that all-embracing mystery we call 
light. 



THE NEW RELIGION 141 

And what is light ? 

Light is one substance with three proper- 
ties, the actinic, luminiferous and calorific. In 
spite of the fact that the properties of light 
are distinct they cannot be separated from 
each other. Where the one is the others are. 
Where the actinic is the luminiferous and the 
calorific are. Where the luminiferous is the 
actinic and the calorific are. Where the calo- 
rific is the actinic and the luminiferous are. 
The actinic can neither be seen nor felt. The 
calorific cannot be seen but may be felt. The 
luminiferous is both seen and felt and is the 
revelation and expression of the other two. 

What an absurdity it would be to reject any 
two of these properties and call the remaining 
one light. 

Nay! light is one and yet three. Light is 
three and yet one. 

And Holy Scripture says, "God is light." 

God is one substance — one God and yet 
three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 
In spite of the fact that the personalities are 
distinct they cannot be separated from each 
other. Where the one is the others are. 
Where the Father is the Son and the Spirit 
are. Where the Son is the Father and the 
Spirit are. Where the Spirit is the Father and 
the Son are. The Father can neither be seen 
nor felt. The Spirit cannot be seen but may 
be felt. The Son can be both seen and felt 
and is the revelation and the expression of 



142 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

the other two. What an absurdity it would 
be to reject any two of these persons of the 
God-head and call the remaining one God. 

Nay! God is one and yet three. God is 
three and yet one. 

And these three distinct persons, Father, 
Son and Holy Spirit are one God in which 
we neither confound the persons nor divide 
the substance. And these three in the one 
infinite Godhead work out in their indivisible 
unity, redemption, righteousness and final 
glory, in the name of Christ, and in their unity 
alone make Christianity possible. 

A mystery! 

Beyond all question. And what is a God 
without mystery? What is a God whose in- 
finity a finite mind can grasp? 

But between a mystery and a puzzle there 
is an Atlantic Ocean difference. The Trinity 
is a divine mystery, the simplest statement 
concerning which may well call upon all the 
intellect and heart in a human being. But a 
"multiplication of infinities" is a vulgar 
puzzle which might well produce laughter in 
the bottomless pit. 

It is a fallacy to set up a religion based on 
the processes of personal evolution and seek 
thereby to bring forth the divinity in an in- 
dividual life. You might as well attempt to 
gather grapes of thorns and figs of thistles, 
or turn a stone into a son of God. 
^It is fallacious to seek to build a religion 



THE NEW RELIGION 143 

which bids men look within themselves for 
hope. You might as well exhort a man to 
look down the crater of a flaming hell. 

It is a fallacy to build any religion which 
ignores the controversy between sin and holi- 
ness ; between a being who hates holiness and 
a holy being who hates sin. 

It is a fallacy to build a religion which does 
not seek to bring the conscience of man into 
accord with the conscience of the universe — 
that is to say, the conscience of God. 

In a world where God invariably punishes 
every violation of his law before he forgives 
it, what folly, what worse than folly to set 
up a treaty between God and man which does 
not rest upon a basis of satisfaction rendered 
to God, satisfaction to his law, his govern- 
ment and being. What a fallacy to attempt 
to set up a religion which denies the necessity 
of atonement ; a necessity written into the very 
fabric of things; written in the law of hered- 
ity; written in personal experience and echo- 
ing in the words and the truth, "Whatsoever 
a man soweth that shall he also reap ;" revealed 
in every electric chair and hangman's rope 
and coming down to us with unabridged ac- 
cent in the unrepealed original law of God, 
"Whoso sheddeth man's blood by man shall 
his blood be shed." A necessity illustrated, 
repeated, typified, reannounced and affirmed 
from Eden's gate where the first victim is slain 
till that hour when Jesus cries "it is finished," 



144 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

and an apostle says, he "died for our sins ac- 
cording to the scriptures ;" not only in fulfil- 
ment of the scriptures but according to the 
doctrine of the scriptures — that is — sacrificial 
atonement. 

Oh, the fallacy of a religion which does not 
satisfy the conscience of man with the satis- 
faction that satisfies the conscience of God. 

But why go further? Think of the fallacy 
of a religion which sets aside the supernatural, 
shrouds the grave in silence and shuts man up 
to a limited life of forty or fifty or sixty 
years — a quick, sharp pain — a gasp for breath 
— death — the grave clods and — forgetfulness. 

Is that the cure-all for the twentieth cent- 
ury? 

Is that the latest thing the Athenian culture 
of the hour can give us? 

Is this the best product of a university 
course ? 

In a world of perplexities, tragedies and 
woes, has the Athenianism of the twentieth 
century nothing better to offer than a religion 
without authority, a faith without doctrine, 
and a Christ without character? 

For the heartache, for the memory of yes- 
terday's sin that bites as the sharp tooth of a 
ravening wolf, has the new religion nothing 
better to offer than the knife of the surgeon 
to cure the disease of the body; has it no 
medicine for a mind diseased, no remedy for 
the pain of the soul ? 



THE NEW RELIGION 145 

As our eyes grow dim with age has it no 
vision of a holy city, a haven of rest; when 
life's fitful fever is over here has it no nobler 
pulse-beat to give us there? 

When we stand on the threshold of the five 
minutes after death can it do no better than 
take away from us all the sweet stories of 
heaven we learned at our mother's knee? 
When we stand at that place where the ways 
part, where time is no longer a high road and 
eternity unrolls a dim, uncertain route, can it 
give us no better sign-post than an interroga- 
tion point, no better direction than a guess ? 

If it be so — then this new religion is the 
most forlorn, the most hopeless, the most 
fallacious, unintellectual, cruel, heartless, con- 
cept of human limitation, contradiction and 
confusion, ever invented within a dry, mois- 
tureless skull, to deceive and betray the 
troubled soul of man. For bread it gives us a 
stone, for a fish it gives us a serpent. Instead 
of a living, sentient, thrilling religion, it is a 
mummy, a juiceless, withered mummy. In- 
stead of setting us upon a foundation it flings 
us into a sea which has no shore and whose 
broken waves continually toss us into the 
deeper depths of unsounded darkness. 

Oh, New Religion ! thy name is fallacy and 
thine outcome — despair. 

4. What would happen if this new religion 
should become universal? 

Three things would happen. 



146 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

The world would become materialistic, lati- 
tudinarian and utilitarian. 

It would become materialistic. 

The moment you shut out the life and the 
world to come; the moment you shut man up 
to the life that now is, you have made him a 
materialist. He says, Let us eat and drink for 
to-morrow we die. Let us seek and delve and 
lay hold of earth's treasures that we may 
enjoy earth's pleasure while we may. Shut 
out from God and a future in which to know 
and enjoy him, man is but a sensualist. No 
matter though his soul may fly on the wings 
of song almost to the zenith ; no matter though 
his genius may flash forth on every plane of 
aesthetic culture and refinement be found in 
every accent of his life, he is at the best only a 
sensualist, living, governed, and governing by 
the material senses, with no larger vision than 
the things that are seen, and no deeper in- 
spiration than the things which are temporal. 

The world would become latitudinarian. 

With a religion preaching anarchy in mind, 
there would come latitudinarianism — lawless- 
ness in desire and lawlessness in deed. With 
dethronement of authority in religion there 
would be overthrow of any settled standard in 
morals. What is considered to-day's evil 
might be to-morrow's good ; the wrong in one 
latitude might be virtue in another, and fixity 
of law in any direction would be resented 



THE NEW RELIGION 147 

as a limit to human action and an appeal to 
anarchy in the name of freedom. 

The world would become utilitarian. 

Utilitarianism is self-defence. 

You have policemen in your cities not be- 
cause you love righteousness and truth in 
themselves or because you are specially inter- 
ested to maintain the integrity of your neigh- 
bor's meum et teum, but because you do not 
wish your own domain invaded. 

With lawlessness, moral and physical, 
breaking out as a consequence of materialistic 
latitudinarianism in. religion, men would be 
forced to come together and erect some final 
standard in morals, some absolute and definite 
form of authority; and thus, in the end, in- 
stead of authority enthroned in grace and act- 
ing in love and benevolence to individual lives, 
you would have a centralized tyranny in which 
the personal hope would be sacrificed to the 
general concept. 

The world would be filled with educated and 
trained animals from whom all sense of a 
personal God would have disappeared ; a world 
in which all true perspective of personal re- 
sponsibility would be absent ; a world in which 
every advance in Athenian culture would 
serve to make man a stench in the nostrils of 
the Almighty and would cry aloud that he 
should come and sweep such a race of worth- 
less, fruitless beings from the face of the earth. 



148 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

5. Finally, the prophetic import of this new 
religion. 

The import is clear enough. 

The Word of God has told us in unmistake- 
able language that in the closing hours of 
this age many will depart from the faith once 
for all delivered to the saints, the church will 
refuse to endure sound doctrine, false teach- 
ers will enter in, denying the Lord that bought 
them; denying his virgin birth, his resurrec- 
tion and his coming again; teachers who will 
turn the people from the truth and turn them 
to fables, the wisdom and conceit of men. 
Holy Scripture tells us that when these things 
begin to come to pass the true Christian is to 
look up, lift up his head for his redemption 
draweth nigh ; the Lord himself will come and 
will take the true church to himself and pour- 
ing forth his fierce but long delayed judgments 
on the earth, vindicate the righteousness and 
the truth of God. 

The New Religion is one of the signs of 
the times. 

It is a witness that God is making the wrath 
of man to praise him by verifying his Word 
in fulfilment of the very evils and iniquities 
it has foretold. 

Where do you stand ? 

Do you stand with the old religion, the re- 
ligion of your fathers and mothers, the re- 
ligion that has filled the world with sweetness 
and light, carried it through the breakers of 



THE NEW RELIGION 149 

sin and shame and given it the saving vision 
of heaven and God; or, do you stand with 
that new religion which denies the Bible of 
God, the God of the Bible, and rejects that 
Christ of the cross and the empty grave who 
has said, "No man cometh unto the Father 
but by me?" 

Do you stand with that new religion which 
begins with a doubt, ends with a guess, and 
has no to-morrow? 

Where do you stand? 



THINKING ABOVE WHAT 
IS WRITTEN 

OR 

The Exaltation of Human Wisdom Above 
the Word of God 

"Learn in us not to think above that which 
is written." — I Corinthians 4: 6. 

"Thus saith the Lords of hosts, Hearken 
not unto the words of the prophets that 
prophesy unto you ; they make you vain ; they 
speak a vision of their own heart, and not out 
of the mouth of the Lord. They say unto 
them that despise me, The Lord hath said, 
Ye shall have peace ; and they say unto every 
one that walketh after the imagination of his 
own heart, No evil shall come upon you. For 
who hath stood in the counsel of the Lord, and 
hath perceived and heard his word ? who hath 
marked his word and heard it? Behold a 
whirlwind of the Lord is gone forth in fury, 
even a grievous whirlwind: it shall fall 
grievously upon the head of the wicked. 

"The anger of the Lord shall not return, un- 
til he have executed, and till he have per- 



THINKING ABOVE WHAT IS WRITTEN 1 5 1 

formed the thoughts of his heart: in the latter 
days ye shall consider it perfectly. 

"I have not sent these prophets, yet they 
ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they 
prophesied. 

"But if they had stood in my counsel, and 
had caused my people to hear my words, then 
they should have turned them from their evil 
way, and from the evil of their doings. 

"I have heard what the prophets said, that 
prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have 
dreamed, I have dreamed. 

"How long shall this be in the hearts of the 
prophets that prophesy lies? Yea, they are 
prophets of the deceit of their own heart; 

"Which think to cause my people to forget 
my name by their dreams, which they tell 
every man to his neighbour * * * 

"The prophet that hath a dream, let him 
tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let 
him speak my word faithfully. What is the 
chaff to the wheat? said the Lord. 

"Is not my word like as a fire? saith the 
Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the 
rock in pieces ? 

"Therefore, behold, I am against the 
prophets, saith the Lord, that steal my words 
every one from his neighbour." — Jeremiah 23 : 
16-30. 

"The holy scriptures which are able to 
make thee wise unto salvation through faith 
which is in Christ Jesus. 



152 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

"All scripture is given by inspiration of 
God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, 
for correction, for instruction in righteous- 
ness; 

"That the man of God may be perfect, thor- 
oughly furnished unto all good works. 

"I charge thee, therefore, before God, and 
the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the 
quick and the dead and by his appearing and 
kingdom ; 

"Preach the word; be instant in season, out 
of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all 
long suffering and doctrine. 

"For the time will come when they will not 
endure sound doctrine; but after their own 
lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, 
having itching ears; 

"And they shall turn away their ears from 
the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." — 
II Timothy 3: 15-17; 4: 1-4. 

There is at present a widespread movement 
to exalt human wisdom in the Christian pulpit. 
This wisdom calls itself by the high sounding 
title of "scholarship." It professes to be scien- 
tific, philosophic and liberal. It finds its in- 
spiration in the research and achievements of 
human genius. Its authority is the text book 
of modern culture. Its apostles are the scien- 
tists, the philosophers and the advanced think- 
ers of the age. It places the Bible in a sec- 
ondary plane and demands that it shall be in- 
terpreted or modified according to the thought 



THINKING ABOVE WHAT IS WRITTEN 153 

of the hour. It is dogmatic, laying down 
rules and setting up standards. It is intoler- 
ant and almost contemptuous of that preach- 
ing which bases itself alone upon a "thus 
saith the Lord." Its sacramental phrase is that 
"Scholarship is agreed." From this self- 
elected tribunal it warns all who do not agree 
with it that they are declassed and unworthy 
of an interested hearing. It is full of boast- 
ing. It boasts that it is advanced, up to date 
and sane. It boasts that it is driving away 
the fogs and mists which have hitherto gath- 
ered round the theologic arena and that it is 
slowly, but surely, bringing in the millennial 
era of a clear, self-respecting and reasonable 
religion. 

It is a movement wholly human in its origin, 
its method and outcome. 

Over against it stands the apostolic concept 
as expressed in the ministry of the Apostle 
Paul. He refused to allow merely human 
wisdom to enter his pulpit. He declared offi- 
cially that his preaching was not with enticing 
words of man's wisdom, and he lays it down 
as a definite postulate that the Christian min- 
ister is to learn through contemplation of him 
and his co-apostles, "not to think above that 
which is written." 

And yet, if any man ever could have 
thought above the written Word; if ever a 
man could have spoken in the words of 
human wisdom and with scientific accent, it 



154 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

was this man Paul. He was a member of the 
Jewish Sanhedrin. He had sat at the feet of 
Gamaliel, the greatest teacher of his times. 
He was not only versed in the Hebrew scrip- 
tures, he knew thoroughly Hebrew literature. 
He was an adept in the Talmud, that monu- 
mental work which requires years of study 
simply to master the outlines of its hair split- 
ting definitions and the metaphysical ramifica- 
tions of its tortuous and subtle casuistry. He 
was a Latinist as well as a Hebraist. He knew 
Roman philosophy although it was taught by 
Greek professors. If he was fluent in Latin, 
he was at home in Greek, and in one of his 
sermons quotes easily and readily from the 
Greek anthology. All this education and cul- 
ture was added to a mind of extraordinary 
vigor, a mind keen, analytic, forensic, judicial. 
If he could pull apart he could put together. 
If he analyzed, he synthetized. His statements 
are at times concrete and absolutely dynamic. 
His conclusions are reached from premises 
stated with unfaltering precision. If he 
had desired he might have spoken in 
such fashion that his hearers would have been 
carried away with enthusiasm and crowned 
him at once as orator, logician and scientist. 
But he did nothing of this. He refused to 
follow such methods. He declared that he 
was sent not to preach with the wisdom of 
words, lest the faith of those who heard him 
should stand in the wisdom of men and not 



THINKING ABOVE WHAT IS WRITTEN 1 55 

in the power of God. He warns the Colos- 
sians against those preachers who would seek 
to spoil them with philosophy and vain deceit, 
after the tradition of men, and he exhorts 
Timothy not to be seduced by the "oppositions 
of science falsely so called." 

To Paul, the science of that day, the 
gnosis of that hour; to Paul, the so 
called science of this moment, the science 
that laughs at the idea of miracles, ties 
God up in his own creation, makes him 
the galley slave of the laws and forces which 
he himself has created, turns this world into a 
vast chemical laboratory without a chemist, or 
a huge engine room with no suspicion of a 
supreme engineer behind it; the science that 
denies the God of the Bible, robs the world of 
the Christ of the Bible and, finally, shredding 
the Bible apart page by page, discounts it and 
wrenches it loose from the pulpit as no longer 
the inerrant Word of God : that science to Paul 
was, and would be, contemptible. 

And why not? 

What has science done that it is entitled to 
enter the Christian pulpit and set aside the 
written Word as no longer a full and com- 
plete revelation from God ? 

There are seven great riddles which laugh 
in the face of the most accomplished science. 

1. The riddle of force and matter. 

We know absolutely nothing about the ra- 
tionale of force and matter that was not known 



156 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

by Plato, Aristotle and Epictetus. They knew 
the immutability of force and nature. What- 
ever we know of application and relation has 
only heightened the essential mystery. 

2. The origin of motion. 

Everything is in motion. The things we call 
solid are made up of atoms quivering with 
molecular action. The solid beam of iron or 
steel on which our giant constructions rest are 
so many atoms each separate from the other 
and all in motion. The bullet that speeds 
through air to its determined mark is, as has 
been well said, not a solid but a mass of 
moving atoms like a swarm of bees. The 
atoms in a pinhead it has been calculated 
would require 250,000 years to count; and 
these are sweeping about each other like so 
many revolving worlds. This earth with the 
stellar universe, even while you hear these 
words, has been plunging through new space 
at a speed terrific to contemplate and on a 
course to which it never can return. All is in 
motion and the great question is, how did this 
motion begin ; where and what was the power 
able to overcome the inertia apparently inher- 
ent in every atom and body ? And science can- 
not tell, it can only face the proposition and 
be speechless. 

And face to face with a fact for which it 
has no reason and no logic, it dares to simper 
about the impossibility of miracles. 

3. The origin of life. 



THINKING ABOVE WHAT IS WRITTEN 1 5 7 

What is life? 

There is not a dictionary in the world that 
can give a decent answer. Science has no re- 
sponse that is worth repeating. 

What relation has mind to matter? What 
is mind? On what basis will a scientist ac- 
count for a spiritual deduction from the fact 
of matter? He cannot account for it. 

What is death? 

Death is an unsolved mystery. The scalpel 
and the knife of the physician have not been 
able to find the soul or the mind; the acutest 
instrument ever invented has not been able to 
get a single articulation from the other side of 
death. 

What is the process of life, what is its 
reason? Kant says that life is a trial in which 
at last the strongest and the best equipped 
must succumb. Schopenhauer tells us, practic- 
ally, that we are all fools living in a fool 
world, fooled with the idea and the promise of 
life. 

How life began, from what, and why it be- 
gan, are impenetrable mysteries to the most 
profound and lettered science. 

4. The fitness and the adaptation of things 
in nature. 

Everywhere there is adaptation of means 
to an end. Nothing is Jumbled, pell-mell, hit 
or miss. The keener the microscopic investi- 
gation, the more thoroughly it is demonstrated 
that all things are stamped with design and 



158 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

fitted into relationships. What is the reason 
for this fitness? Why do certain forces at- 
tract and others repel? Why do qualities 
carry their continuance through all sorts of 
combination? Why do things keep to their 
nature and never cross or mix or get con- 
founded in their ultimates? 

And science cannot tell. 

It can give you a lot of formulas, fill your 
ears with words, fool you with what it calls 
the technical, and then land you in the final 
analysis, in the fact that your question has 
simply been pushed further backward and not 
answered. 

5. The riddle of consciousness. 

Consciousness is that something or some- 
what by which I know that I am not you and 
that you are not I; that I am distinct from 
that which is not a part of me. What is that 
by which I feel pain or joy or sorrow? The 
scientist will tell me that it is the telegraphic 
system in me called nerves, and that the 
nerves telegraph sensation from the 
register of the brain. But the 

brain is not I, the brain is only my signal 
board, my typewriter, it is one of my machines 
— it is not I — myself. What then is that final 
thing in me that knows and distinguishes sen- 
sations — that thing we call consciousness ? And 
science cannot tell — the riddle of conscious- 
ness laughs loud and long — but science is 
dumb, 



THINKING ABOVE WHAT IS WRITTEN 1 59 

6. The riddle of thought. 

Thought ! that is a great thing — a thought. 
I speak a word, it strikes on your ear, it enters 
your mind, it dissolves, it touches hidden 
springs, it becomes thought, it multiplies into 
a thousand other thoughts, each thought sug- 
gesting another. You think these thoughts in 
words not spoken and of which you are at the 
time unconscious. Scenes, ideas, conceptions, 
arise and march through your mind, your 
brain. At the utterance or sight of a word, 
or as the result of a sensation, you say, "I 
thought, I think. I had a thought about it." 
What is a thought ? Ask science. Science will 
think thoughts but it cannot tell you what a 
thought is ; and yet, this incapable science rises 
up and wishes to say what shall be thought 
and not thought in a Christian pulpit. 

7. The riddle of the will. 

There is something in the world stronger 
than steam, gasolene, dynamite, picric acid or 
electricity. That something is the human will. 
It carries men up the mountain peak, it en- 
ables them to descend into the mines of earth. 
By reason of that will men leave home and 
friends and fortune. That will carries them 
in the wild charge up the steep ascent where 
the belching cannon are the mouths of hell. 
That will stands and defies any will however 
supreme. What is that thing within which is 
stronger than the hope of life and the fear of 
death? 



160 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

And science cannot tell. 

What does science know about sin; that 
something in the world that is a poison, a 
weakness, a devil, a tyrant, an enemy, a temp- 
ter and utter destruction? What does science 
know about transmission or that heredity it 
seeks to deny? What does it know about 
causation? Nay! science does not know the 
reason for the very first proposition in its own 
mathematics. 

Why do two and two make four? 

If you were offered a billion of golden dol- 
lars and given a billion of years to find out, you 
would know no more at the end of that time 
than you do now. There is not a being on 
earth can tell. Two and two do make four 
and that is all you know or can know about it. 
There is not a scientist in the world can tell 
why. And yet this science dares to talk about 
the unreason of miracles. This is the thing 
that demands an entrance into our pulpits. 

And who are the men who would come in 
the name of science, the scientific thought, en- 
ter the Christian pulpit and demand the right 
to interpret the revelation from God? Who 
are these men and what is their title to exalt 
scholarship so called and human wisdom in 
the church of Christ, in the very sanctuary 
of the church? Have these men more and 
better books than other men? Do they read 
more, search more ? Are they better trained ? 
Are they mentally superior to their fellow min- 
isters? Are they more honest? 



THINKING ABOVE WHAT IS WRITTEN 1 61 

To affirm so is to insult men whose right- 
eousness is as strong in fibre as the honesty of 
God. To affirm so is to insult men whose 
minds, whose genius, place them in the cate- 
gory of princes in the realm of intellect. To 
affirm so is to insult men who have brought 
their minds under a discipline more severe, 
more intense and more continuous, than that of 
the grenadier guards of the German Emperor. 
To affirm all this is to set up an indecency 
of self-conceit that might well bring the blush 
to a brazen image. 

And what have these men accomplished 
with their scientific method in respect to the 
Bible? They ran full haste to the pulpit, 
climbed into it and, panting for breath, told 
the gaping, terrorized crowd that it was im- 
possible for Moses to have written the Penta- 
teuch because at the date assigned to the Mo- 
saic authorship writing was not known. And 
then some thoughtless archaeologist dug up a 
whole town in that far Eastern land filled with 
books and bearing indisputable witness that 
writing had existed some hundreds of years 
before Moses was born. Then again these 
preachers with the scientific method came 
rushing out of breath to say that the four- 
teenth chapter of Genesis was absolute un- 
truth; that no such kings as recorded there 
ever existed. And then that same ridiculous 
archaeologist dug his persistent spade into the 
ground and turned over some stones bearing 



162 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

the very names of those kings and carrying 
the dust of the very age in which scripture 
affirmed they had lived. 

What have these men succeeded in doing 
but setting up first one standard of authority, 
then another, denying later on each standard 
in turn till, in the end, their science is more 
contradictory and out of joint than the Bible 
they seek to mend. 

What shall be said of this science but that 
at the best the moment it enters the Christian 
pulpit and begins to handle the Word of God, 
it shows itself to be nothing better than a 
worthless ecclesiastical shoddyism. 

And over against it stands the Apostolic 
concept and method as set forth pre-eminently 
by the Apostle Paul, contradicting the modern 
method and its so called scholarship and 
science — contradicting it in theme, authority 
and power. 

Consider the apostolic theme. 

The Apostle Paul did not preach the refor- 
mation of government. He never tried to 
crowd his church with "civic" meetings, filling 
his pulpit with ward agitators and town politi- 
cians. He never railed against the corrup- 
tions of the Roman empire. And yet those 
corruptions were all about him. He lived in 
an atmosphere of bribe taking and bribe giv- 
ing, such as the world has never since known. 
It is true, in some respects, the Roman govern- 
ment was the best the sun ever shone upon; 



THINKING ABOVE WHAT IS WRITTEN 1 63 

in others, the most corrupt, most vile and de- 
structive. And yet it is this Apostle Paul who 
says, "submit to the powers that be; for the 
powers that be are ordained of God." 

He never raised his voice or sent out his 
writings against the vice and licentiousness of 
the times. And yet that vice and that licen- 
tiousness poured their turgid tide all about 
him. He saw vice exalted as virtue and virtue 
denied as vice. He saw sin glorified in panels 
of marble, framed in silver and gold, portrayed 
in pi^ures, and almost speaking in statues. 
He saw it in living and beautiful flesh, with 
eloquent eyes and extended, inviting hands, 
and words that caressed and claimed submis- 
sion to mad desire and shameless passion. 

He delivered no philippics upon the impur- 
ity of the world, to the world itself. 

He raised no testimony against the wrongs 
of society. 

And yet they were without number. At 
every turn he saw men toiling for a stipend. 
He heard the cry of unpaid wages. He saw 
sixty millions of slaves whose individual lives 
were not worth so much as a kenneled dog. 
So far from lifting up his voice against these 
things he exhorts to submission and peace. 

These were not his theme. He did not 
preach civilization and moral progress, but 
everlasting life. His theme found expression 
in the concrete utterance, "I determined not 



164 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

to know anything among you, save Jesuis 
Christ, and him crucified." 

That was his theme. 

Consider his authority. 

His authority was primarily the old Hebrew 
scriptures, those scriptures which the scientist 
and the modern scientific preacher repudiate as 
a bundle of old wives fables and frauds; the 
scriptures which Jesus Christ himself 
avouched as inspired of God, claimed as wit- 
ness to his person, work and office, and ex- 
pounded until the hearts of his disciples 
burned within them. 

"Thus saith the Lord," was his authority. 

Behold him there at Thessalonica for three 
successive Saturdays entering the synagogue 
and opening and alleging that Christ must 
needs suffer, die and be raised again the third 
day, and declaring that this Jesus whom he 
preached unto them was the very Christ. He 
reasoned, he exhorted out of these old scrip- 
tures. He went into the book of Leviticus, 
as his epistle to the Hebrews proves, and 
showed them how the five great offerings there 
recorded found their fulfilment in the cross 
of Christ. He pointed to the Tabernacle and 
testified that every board and bar, every cord 
and pin, and curtain and vessel, set forth the 
person, the work, and the office of Christ ; and 
that in Jesus of Nazareth every typical and 
prophetic detail found its completion and full 
fruition. 



THINKING ABOVE WHAT IS WRITTEN ^ I 65 

He set the written Word up as his authority. 

He went further. He laid it down as a law 
for every Christian, and specially for every 
Christian preacher and teacher "not to think 
above that which is written." 

And why not ? 

Surely the answer is self-evident. Apart 
from the New Testament Jesus Christ is no 
more historical than some fabled character of 
human fiction. Cut out the New Testament, 
and all that Josephus says, or Pliny and the 
rest of them, as outside witnesses, is not worth 
the paper on which it is written. 

Talk about modifying, clarifying, editing 
the New Testament! The New Testament 
must be its own authority, just as the grain 
of wheat seed must carry the demonstration 
of its quality within. It must be all of the 
New Testament or none of the New Testa- 
ment. And, as the New Testament is 
the fruit of the old, it must be a whole Bible or 
no Bible. All the written word or none, as the 
supreme authority. And Paul sets up the 
written Word as supreme authority and or- 
dains that the Christian shall not think above 
that which is written. 

And why not be obedient to this law ? 

This is the only book that gives an intelli- 
gent answer to the questions concerning the 
origin of creation. 

Listen to the opening words of the Bible. 



166 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

In all language there is nothing so sublime as 
this postulate : 

"In the beginning God!" 

Where can you match that? All that you 
can think, the premise of every possible 
thought you can think through endless mil- 
lions of ages, in four words. 

"IN THE BEGINNING— GOD." 

GOD — here is the raison d'etre of creation 
Here is the statement that meets every ques- 
tion. 

Put this over against the so called scientific 
idea that creation originates in an infinites- 
imal atom, or the dull machine concept of 
uniformitarianism, of an eternally unbegun 
creation, a creation that springs out of un- 
thinking matter and not from original mind; 
put these concepts over against the idea of 
a supreme personal intellect having all re- 
sources in himself and by the fiat of his will 
producing a creation whose every atom is 
stamped with the sign mark of infinite intel- 
lectuality and wisdom, and how utterly im- 
becile and idiotic they seem; and how, on the 
contrary, the idea of a supreme personality 
meets and satisfies the sense of personalism 
and intelligence in us. 

In other words, we feel that intellect must 
come from intellect, personality from personal- 
ity and the ability to say "I will" from some 
original force that said, "Thou shalt." 

And this satisfying answer concerning the 



THINKING ABOVE WHAT IS WRITTEN 1 67 

origin of creation and the quickening of 
thought it brings, is to be found alone in the 
written Word. 

This book is the only one in the world that 
gives an adequate account of the origin of sin. 
This book tells you the immense truth that sin 
originated in the clash of two independent 
wills, the free will of God and the one time 
free will of man. God said "I will" and man 
said, "I will not." God willed but man would 
not, and God's defied will became in man the 
sin that has paralyzed the world for sixty cen- 
turies in its relation to the intellect and the 
heart of God. This book is the alone Word that 
gives an answer to the questions of life; for 
it is written therein that in God as the infinite 
and all-sufficient environment, "we live and 
move and have our being." This written 
Word is the only book that pulls aside the veil 
after death, throws the flashlight of hope into 
an empty grave and gives the picture of an 
immortal man on the throne of the Highest. 

Learn not to think above what is written. 

The exhortation is justified. 

Consider the source of apostolic power. 

Not for a moment did the Apostle Paul or 
any of his co-workers depend upon any trick 
of oratory, or logic, or human attainment, or 
wisdom. There was but one power they 
sought — the demonstration of the Spirit and 
of power. 



168 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

And the Spirit is always seen operating in 
connection with the written Word. 

Look there at Pentecost — three thousand 
converted in a day; at another time five thou- 
sand men alone. And the preacher Simon 
Peter with the smell of the fish scarcely off his 
hands. Simon Peter, who never saw the in- 
side of a school of the prophets. Whence his 
astounding success ? In this, that he preached 
the written Word and the Spirit of the living 
God quickened the minds of the hearers and 
opened their hearts to receive it. 

And thus it has been down the ages. 
Wherever there has been a true revival it 
has always been the operation of the Spirit in 
connection with and in exaltation of the 
written Word. 

And the reason is self-evident. The written 
Word is the tongue of the Spirit. Without 
the Spirit the Word is dead. Without the 
Word the Spirit is dumb. The Word is a 
seed. Without the Spirit it cannot germinate 
and quicken the soul. The rain and sunshine 
on the earth are of no avail unless the seed 
be sown within. Any revival without the 
Word has been fictitious and ephemeral. 

And here is the answer to the question 
"What is the matter with the church ?" 

The matter is, the Word is not preached; 
or, when it is preached it is set forth with an 
apology or openly falsified and denied. 

There can be no genuine revival till the 



THINKING ABOVE WHAT IS WRITTEN 1 69 

written Word is exalted and made supreme. 

You may make all the evangelistic plans in 
the world; so long as some of the men en- 
gaged in the movement are apostles of the 
Higher Criticism, are advocates of modern 
scholarship as the standard of Biblical inter- 
pretation and statement, there can be no re- 
vival. How is it possible for a revival to take 
place in a church where the preacher throws 
doubt on the virgin birth of Christ, the resur- 
rection of the body and the integrity of Holy 
Scripture ? 

The Spirit of God cannot work through a 
lie — and such preaching is a lie. If additions 
come to such a church, if there are reported 
conversions, they are fake conversions; they 
are simply the evolution of the natural right- 
eousness in the individual. The Spirit of 
God cannot fellowship the denial of the per- 
son, the work and the office of the Son of 
God. 

Let a preacher once get bitten with this idea 
of modern scholarship in his preaching and 
teaching. Let him begin to make Herbert 
Spencer and the rest of the ilk his source of 
information and inspiration, and it is a dead 
certainty that he will, sooner or later, end in re- 
pudiating the Christianity of the New Testa- 
ment and the Bible as the complete and in- 
fallible Word of God. 

Let a Church get under the spell of such 
teaching and eventually, but easily and un- 



170 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

consciously, it will begin to break down the 
standards and repudiate one by one the funda- 
mentals of the faith. 

And this is the ultimate to which that 
preaching leads which exalts human wisdom 
above the written Word of God. 

And I charge those who preach in this 
fashion with being sappers and miners in the 
church of Christ. They turn the pulpit into 
the wooden horse of Troy. It was a smart 
trick on the part of those Greeks to get 
inside the beleagured city and overthrow its 
gallant defenders at the walls. These preach- 
ers come into the pulpit in the name of the 
higher reason and the sanity of the hour, and 
then let loose a whole body of armed infidelity 
to knock down and destroy, if possible, the 
walls of salvation. 

This preaching is indeed subtle. 

It talks about Christ! But what Christ? I 
answer, the Christ of Bethlehem and not the 
Christ of the cross. If now and then it 
is persuaded to refer to the cross, it means 
that the death thereon was not a penal sacri- 
fice but a useless martyrdom. It talks about 
the resurrection, but it means merely the con- 
tinued existence of Christ as a spirit filling a 
larger area of influence than when confined 
to his mortal body. It talks of righteousness, 
but it is a righteousness without blood; a 
righteousness in which Christ acts to the 
natural man as fire to hidden writing, his ex- 



THINKING ABOVE WHAT IS WRITTEN 1 7 1 

ample, his life as he lived it on the earth, 
serving to bring out the innate truth and 
goodness in every man. 

The Apostle Paul has given an earnest 
warning concerning this preaching. He de- 
clares that in the last days Satan will be trans- 
formed into an angel of light and his ministers 
into ministers of righteousness — a righteous- 
ness without blood — a devil's righteousness. 
The men who preach this sweetness and light 
may be the most honest men in the world, 
but their message is a lie and its outcome is 
an attempt of the Devil to destroy the truth 
of God. 

And this sort of preaching is a sign of the 
last times. 

The Apostle Paul has warned us that in the 
closing hours of this age the church will be 
filled with teachers who shall turn the pro- 
fessed followers of Christ away from the truth 
and shall turn them to fables. 

The Apostle Peter testifies that these teach- 
ers will deny the Lord that bought them and 
mocking at the doctrine of the Lord's Second 
Coming shall say, "Where is the promise of 
his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, 
all things continue as they were from the be- 
ginning of the creation. ,, 

The Son of God has declared that as this 
dispensation draws to its end, the assaults 
against the faith once delivered to the saints 
will be made in his name and in the name of 



172 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

truth; that the perilous times of the church 
will not be because of the multiplication of 
iniquity and sin, but because of the claims of 
a Christianity not inspired of the Spirit; a 
Christianity that in the name of Christ shall 
do many wonderful works, wonderful enough 
to deceive, if it were possible, the very elect, 
but against whose deception the Lord has 
warned in earnest and unmeasured terms. 

He announces that at the close of this hour 
of grace and just before he descends to earth 
once more, the faith which he himself inspired 
will have waned and fallen away. 

This preaching then which seeks to exalt 
human wisdom at the expense of the written 
Word and makes use of the glamour of mod- 
ern scholarship to deceive even earnest men, 
is a sign that the Coming of the Lord draweth 
nigh; that he is coming to repudiate the pro- 
fessing church as his witness in the world, 
take the true church to himself and then go 
forth in judgment on a materialistic and god- 
less world. 

It is time, therefore, that the church should 
arouse. 

It is time that Christians should exalt the 
written Word as never before. 

Let every church write over its doors and 
over its pulpit, "Learn not to think above 
that which is written." 

Let the church make this written Word the 
test of membership and fellowship, refusing 



THINKING ABOVE WHAT IS WRITTEN 1 73 

to admit to full association any individual who 
repudiates its integrity, who does not accept 
its testimony. 

Let the church make submission to the writ- 
ten Word a test of the pulpit, allowing no 
man to enter it who does not base his speech 
unqualifiedly upon an unabridged "thus saith 
the Lord." 

Let Christians study that Word as they 
never studied it before. Here only can the 
Christian meet the Devil and overcome him. 

This was the method of the Son of God. 
To every assault of Satan he answered, "It is 
written." 

And this must be the method now. 

To achieve this method there must be a deep 
and earnest study of the written Word. 

The Christian who reads and studies 
everything else under heaven but his Bible 
is like the soldier who exercises with every- 
thing else but his gun or his sword ; when the 
enemy comes he is of no avail. 

The Christian who cannot give a reason- 
able answer for the hope that is within him — 
and he cannot if he does not study faithfully 
the written Word — the Christian who cannot 
give that answer by a "thus it is written," is 
defeated before he begins. 

Let a Christian study the written Word and 
it will be a test to his own heart, it will tell 
him how much spiritual life he has in him 
by the response he makes to that Word. 



174 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

Study that Word. If it reveals you to your- 
self, as when you look within a glass, at the 
same time it will set forth the provisions of 
infinite grace and become to you the nourish- 
ment by the way, giving you through the 
eternal Spirit the vigor required to live the 
spiritual life and make manifest your sonship 
with God, your partnership with the coming 
Christ. 

And, friend out of Christ. Out of Christ! 
what a phrase that is — it is time that you 
should arouse. 

Refuse, I pray you, to listen to these men 
who put a bar sinister on the Christ of God; 
who keep his grave filled with a dead man's 
dust; who smile and mock and while they 
smile, deny the only Word that can give you 
hope. 

What can science do for you? 

It cannot minister to a mind diseased. It 
has no formula by which it can dissolve the 
sorrow in a tear, no power by which it can 
lift the burden of the heart. When you stand 
by the grave of the dead it has no voice with 
which to speak the words of comfort to the 
listening soul. It has no light that will pene- 
trate the gloom of death. It has no vision 
of the gates of life, it dare not bid you hope. 
It stands with its theorems and postulates and 
sees all its wisdom turned to folly in the 
presence of the great silence and the endless 



THINKING ABOVE WHAT IS WRITTEN 1 75 

reach which, for want of a better name, we 
call eternity. 

No, science can do nothing for you. 

There is no light or hope in anything but 
the written Word of God. This Word that 
has outlived the men who denied it. This 
Word that flings the sunlight of hope through 
the tear of despair and turns the night of 
weeping into the morning of joy. This Word 
that has sung its glad songs when all the 
world was out of tune, this is the Word you 
must hear. Hear that Word! It is calling 
unto you in the rarest and clearest speech that 
ever was heard. It is bidding you turn to 
him who is saying to you, "Come unto me all 
ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will 
give you rest." 

Hear it, I pray you, before it is too late, 
before the door is closed and your priceless 
opportunity gone forever. 

Let me solemnly assure you that if you re- 
ject this written Word and the grace which it 
reveals, when you stand at the great tribunal, 
not of a Saviour but a Judge, it will be this 
written Word that will judge you, and the 
voice of the Great King will be heard in your 
ears saying, "You were exhorted, not to think 
above that which is written." 



THE DEVIL'S RIGHTEOUS- 
NESS 

OR 

Cain Come to Town Again 



"And no marvel; for Satan himself is trans- 
formed into an angel of light. Therefore it is 
no great thing if his ministers also be trans- 
formed as the ministers of righteousness; 
whose end shall be according to their works. 

Woe unto them! for they have gone in the 
way of Cain. 

For they being ignorant of God's righteous- 
ness, and going about to establish their own 
righteousness, have not submitted themselves 
unto the righteousness of God." 

"For Christ is the end of the law for right- 
eousness to every one that believeth. 

And this is his name whereby he shall be 
called, "The Lord our Righteousness/' 2. Cor- 
inthians. 11:14,15. Jude 11. Romans 10:3,4. 
Jeremiah 23 :6. 

To those who are not blind or deaf to the 
signs of the times it must be evident that 
there is at this hour a world-wide, universal, 
special, and persistent demand for righteous- 
ness. A demand for righteousness in personal 
life, cleanness in the social relation, rectitude 



the devil's righteousness 177 

in business, and purity in government. Con- 
ning towers are erected at every point of the 
compass, filled with alert watchers equipped 
with the latest appliances in the acoustics of 
testimony, and the lime-light of investigation, 
listening and looking for the slightest failure 
in individual and corporate responsibility. A 
false note in the accentuation of truth, a 
wrong quotation in the center of exchange, a 
breakdown in the family circle, or a line out 
of plumb in the civic and commercial edifice, 
are registered, and the vocabulary of an exag- 
gerated vituperation and the phraseology of 
a keen, analytical denunciation, are poured 
forth like a drowning floodtide to sweep away 
iniquity from the face of the earth, while 
exhortation climbs the gamut of appeal, bid- 
ding men to seek for higher and nobler things. 
This demand for righteousness finds its 
expression in the modern pulpit. The old- 
fashioned preaching of doctrinal sermons, the 
setting forth of the fundamentals of the 
Christian faith, have fallen into desuetude. 
The up-to-date preacher now gives us a fifteen 
or twenty-minute moral essay in which he 
exhorts his hearers to be full of sweetness and 
light, be kind and helpful, love justice, show 
mercy and, giving full measure and keeping 
even balance, walk on the plane of unques- 
tioned integrity. The sacramental phrase is, 
"Be good and do good/' On this basis all 
shades of opinion find common ground. There 



178 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

is a revelation of solidarity and brotherhood. 
This very unity gives emphasis and vigor to 
the demand for righteousness. It is said to 
make for finality in character. He who pos- 
sesses this character of righteousness can 
stand with confidence before any tribunal of 
earth. By the same token he need have no 
fear to confront the judge of the highest 
court. As such a character saves him here, 
it will save him hereafter. 

There is nothing more popular than this 
cult of righteousness. An examination of it, 
however, yields some curious results. It will 
be found that it does not depend upon faith 
in Christ. It is true it comes again and again 
in the name of Christ. But the Christ it pre- 
sents is not the Christ of the cross. It is the 
Christ of Bethlehem, the Christ who walked 
the earth. He is described in glowing terms. 
We behold the beauty of his life, we feel the 
tenderness of his words, and recognize the 
helpfulness of his deeds. He is announced as 
the great exemplar, and men are asked to walk 
in his footsteps, to do as he did. He is said 
to have gone about doing good; therefore 
men are exhorted to be good as he was good 
and go about doing the good he did : learning 
to be unselfish, to carry the burden of other 
hearts and make the world better for the living 
in it. But with all this panegyric of his char- 
acter and all the exhortation concerning his 
example, he never passes out of the environ- 



the devil's righteousness 179 

ment of Bethlehem, he never reaches the 
cross. On the contrary, when you push your 
investigation deeper into this attractive right- 
eousness, you will discover that it unhesitat- 
ingly repudiates the cross, refuses to accept 
it as the ground of approach to God, or as the 
source of a righteousness alone acceptable to 
him. The death of Christ is not necessary 
to the redemption of a single soul, and by no 
valid reason can it be proposed as the only 
hope of righteousness satisfactory to God. 
Pushing the investigation to the very core, 
down to the very roots, it is evident that this 
righteousness is nothing more nor less than 
the exaltation and exploitation of human 
nature, its culture and development, as all 
sufficient both for God and man. 

In short, it is the offering of Cain set up 
in the Twentieth century. 

You remember that offering. There was an 
altar piled high with grains of the field, cov- 
ered with fruit, the apricot, the pomegranate, 
and weighted clusters of purple grapes ; there 
were flowers in profusion and clambering 
vines, sending up their fragrance like unseen, 
unheard, but sentient praise; birds flying in 
and out amid the mass of mingled color like 
winged songs; over all the cloudless heaven 
of an Eastern sky pouring down its waves of 
golden light. It was aesthetic in proportion, 
and satisfying to Cain as the witness of his 
toil, his handiwork and culture. 



180 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

And yet this offering was an audacious 
insult to God. 

It was audacious because of the personality 
and nature of Cain, his relation to God, the 
revealed truth of God, and Cain's persistency 
in presenting his offering in face of the truth. 

Cain was the first born son of Adam, born 
after the fall and bearing the image of his 
fallen father. He was outside Eden's gate. 
He stood on ground that God had judged and 
cursed. He was an exile from the divine 
presence, under the sentence of death, and at 
a moral and penal distance from God which, 
in himself, he had no capacity to bridge. 

God, the Lord, had dealt with that 
incapacity. 

He had declared to the guilty man and 
woman who stood before him that he did not 
demand goodness from them. And this in 
the nature of the case. God is something 
more than goodness, he is absolute and essen- 
tial holiness. It is impossible for him to lower 
his standard. There is no possibility by which 
he could admit into fellowship and communion 
with himself those who stood upon a lower 
plane of character and quality. No man who 
is honest can afford to admit into close in- 
timacy and continued friendship with himself 
one who is less honest, and concerning whose 
future development suspicions are just. To 
do so would be to dethrone the man from his 
own professed plane of character. For God 



the devil's righteousness 181 

to admit into his intimate and rewarded com- 
panionship a being who was less than holy, 
and whose history must be a continued demon- 
stration of his inability to be holy, would be 
for God to cast himself down from the 
enthronement of his own holiness and destroy 
all final integrity in the universe. 

In default of holiness man must die and be 
destroyed from the presence of God. 

And again this is in the nature of the case. 
No genius who has a proper valuation of, and 
respect for, his capacities, will permit any 
production of his, which does not do him 
justice, to remain longer than the time it takes 
to destroy it. Every moment that this unequal 
work remains it is a reproach and a scandal 
to him. In self-defense he must, sooner or 
later, blot it out. Fallen man was a reproach 
and a scandal to God. Taking advantage of 
the liberty and freedom God had given him, 
man had marred the image and the beauty of 
God in him. As the handiwork of God he 
was a failure, a reproach and a scandal to 
God. There was nothing for God to do but, 
according to his own eternally written law of 
the survival of the fittest, destroy him from 
his presence. Hence the sentence of death. 

But, even if man could survive the shock 
of death, it would still be necessary for him 
to rise up to the level of the divine character 
and respond to it with a similarity in his own. 
Man could not survive the shock of death; 



182 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

for, "in that war there is no discharge." Even 
if he could survive it there was in him now 
no power to rise up into the required character 
and holiness. 

Then it was, in face of this incapacity, this 
frightful gulf of destruction, that God revealed 
himself as the God of all grace. He caused 
an animal to be slain as a witness that before 
man could approach him he must expiate the 
guilt and the nature of sin; that God must be 
satisfied in his law, his government and being, 
in respect to sin, before he could even deal 
with the fallen man. Then he took the skin 
from the slain victim and out of it made a 
covering for the naked pair as a testimony that, 
by reason of, and in virtue of, this sacrificial 
death, he would provide a character of right- 
eousness in which they might stand accepted 
and acceptable before him. 

And all this was simply a fore-picture of 
the cross of Christ. It was a prophecy that 
the death of Christ would be an expiation 
for sin; that it would satisfy the demand of 
God's righteouness against the sinner ; that by 
virtue of that death, in resurrection, Christ 
would become the righteousness of the sinner 
who should come in his name, claiming his 
death; that this death would be accepted as 
though the sinner himself had died under [judg- 
ment, and the value of it placed to his credit, 
imputed to him, charged to his account, he 
would be freed from the guilt and the demerit 



THE DEVIL'S RIGHTEOUSNESS 183 

of sin and, necessarily, delivered from the 
sentence of death. In resurrection the Son of 
God would become, not only the legal right- 
eousness of the believer, having answered for 
him in death, not only his representative 
righteousness, acting as his perfect character 
and spotless reputation in the court of holi- 
ness, but, as the Second man, the true Adam, 
the new head of the race, he would be 
the giver of a new and spiritual life, whose 
every fibre would be the righteousness of God ; 
so that, in Christ, the believer would be accept- 
ed as the very "righteousness of God." Ap- 
proaching God on the basis of the sacrificial 
death of Christ, the believer would find in 
Christ complete and legal acceptance before 
God, and standing in the beauty of his holi- 
ness, would receive from him that new and 
Christ life which would enable him to walk 
in righteousness and truth before God. 

In simple terms, then, at Eden's gate, God 
taught the world that the only ground of 
approach to him and final identification with 
his righteousness and life, must be by, and 
through, the blood of sacrifice. 

Cain knew this. He had been taught the 
Gospel of blood by his parents. And yet, in 
spite of it all, persisted in bringing to God 
an unbloody offering. 

And this was an insult! 

In presenting such an offering he ignored 
the fact that there was a moral and penal 



184 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

distance between himself and God. He ignored 
the fact that he was an exile from the pres- 
ence of God and under the sentence of death. 
He ignored God's demand for expiation by, 
and through, the sacrifice of blood. He offered 
to God the fruit of that ground which God 
had judged and cursed. He offered to God 
that which God had distinctly repudiated. He 
refused to accept God's estimate. He posi- 
tively denied God's Word. He set up his own 
word instead of the Word of Jehovah. He 
exalted self instead of God. 

And the picture is plain enough. 

Cain is the natural man. He is of the flesh 
and not of the Spirit. He is the first born 
and not the second born. His offering of the 
ground is the offering of the culture of the 
natural man. It is self-righteousness offered 
to God. It is the declaration that there is no 
moral or penal distance between man and God. 
It is the declaration that man is by nature a 
child of God. He may be a little off color, 
due to a thousand things over which he has 
not always had control, but he has all the 
elements of divinity in him, all the roots of 
character sufficient, under proper culture, to 
bloom out and blossom into a life of truth and 
beauty, honoring to God as w r ell as to man. 
It is not necessary for him to look apart from 
himself. He has in himself all the resources 
of righteousness required for time and etern- 
ity. What he needs is, to throw aside the 



the devil's righteousness 185 

superstitious teachings of an antiquated time. 
What he needs is, to set aside the theology of 
the butcher shop, recognize that the Father- 
hood of God is the supreme thing to believe 
in, that the Word of God is not confined to 
the Bible, that Tennyson and Browning are 
apostles as much inspired as Paul, and that 
the doctrines of Judgment to come, hell, 
and banishment from the presence of God, are 
the fictions of narrow and half-educated reli- 
gionists. He is to repudiate the idea of sacri- 
fice, sing to himself that God is in heaven and 
all is well in his world and, living according 
to the inward and perfect light, continue to 
offer to God the fruit of that earth, that 
nature, which God himself has made. 

And this offering of self-righteousness is 
an audacious insult to God. 

It sets aside God's estimate of man. 

And it is here the issue between God and 
man is jjoined. The issue is as to God's esti- 
mate of man or man's estimate of himself. 
The truth is, it is not a question of what you 
think of yourself. It is wholly and altogether 
a question of what God thinks of you, as the 
natural man. You may have a good opinion 
of yourself. Your good opinion may be justi- 
fied by the best standards of the natural 
world. Your fellow men may find in you 
nothing to judge, and everything to commend. 
You may be the most righteous person on the 
face of the earth and engaged every day in 



186 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

sustaining and proclaiming that righteous- 
ness. No matter! your estimate and the esti- 
mate of your friends does not count. It all 
turns upon God's estimate, what God thinks 
about you as a natural man. And God has 
given that estimate in unmistakable terms. 
God has plainly said what he thinks of the 
natural man. He says there are none right- 
eous, no not one. He says all the world 
by nature has been brought in as guilty 
before him. He says there is no differ- 
ence. You may be of blue blood or brown. 
You may have a fine ancestry and a clear 
record in the eyes of men. No matter! he 
says all have sinned and come short of the 
glory of God. He says the natural mind is 
enmity with God, not subject to the law of 
God, neither indeed can be. He says by one 
man sin entered the world and death by sin, 
and so death has passed upon all men. He 
says no man can be justified by the works of 
the law. He announces through the lips of a 
prophet that all our righteousnesses are in his 
sight as filthy, foul, putrid, pestilential and 
disgusting rags. 

Whatever may be the reasoning of God 
that leads him to that conclusion, that is his 
estimate. That his conclusion is just would 
be in the nature of the case, seeing that the 
God of all the earth must do right; but to 
those who follow from the premise of the 
unalterable holiness of God, the unchangeable 



THE devil's righteousness 187 

and incapable nature of man, and the law of 
self-defense in God's character and righteous- 
ness, which will not permit the final continu- 
ance of that which is evil before him, and 
will not permit him to ignore or clear the 
guilty, or allow even his love to deceive him, 
this estimate of man and the correspondingly- 
logical judgment and condemnation of him, 
must be self-evident. But whether it is or 
not; whether it commend itself to our senti- 
ment or reason, it does not matter, it is not 
our estimate that goes, but the estimate of 
God as revealed in his Holy Word. And 
God's estimate is that man is hopelessly lost 
in himself. In coming before God then with 
his own character as a certificate of entrance 
into God's presence, the self-righteous man 
repudiates and tramples under foot the esti- 
mate of God. 

The offering of self-righteousness rejects 
the meaning, and refuses to believe in the 
necessity, of the cross. It refuses to believe 
that the death of the cross was the antitypical 
fulfillment of all the sacrifices that went be- 
fore; that it was the fulfillment of the burnt 
offering, the peace offering, the trespass offer- 
ing; that the death of Christ was the fulfill- 
ment of the sacrifice offered on the day of 
atonement and that this day in which we live, 
dispensationally, is the Day of Atonement, the 
day of reconcilation to God, the day in which 
a sinner may approach, bringing the death of 



188 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

the cross as his sin offering, his peace offer- 
ing, his trespass offering and his burnt 
offering. Self-righteousness does not believe 
the death of Jesus of Nazareth was a divine 
expiation for human sin. It is willing to ac- 
cept it as a moral sacrifice and martyrdom, 
but shrinks back aghast at the idea that God 
was in that hour dealing with his Son as a 
substitute for sinful men, and through his 
death working out, for all willing to accept 
him as such, a righteousness that should be 
the very righteousness of God. Self-right- 
eousness refuses categorically to believe in the 
necessity of expiation on the part of any 
human being. 

It denies the tremendous proposition that 
the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all 
sin. It denies the uncompromising proposi- 
tion that, 'Without shedding of blood there 
is no remission/' 

It denies the demonstrated logic of every 
day's experience that a clean thing cannot 
come out of an unclean. It denies the state- 
ment of the Son of God that that which is 
born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is 
born of the Spirit is spirit. It refuses to 
accept the far-reaching import of that state- 
ment, the definite, dynamic conclusion that 
flesh will always produce flesh, that never, 
under any circumstance, can it produce any- 
thing but flesh, never, under any circumstance, 
can it produce spirit. It refuses to see how 



the devil's righteousness 189 

in this statement the Son of God testifies that 
between that which is born of the flesh and 
that which is born of the Spirit there is a great 
gulf fixed which even God, speaking with all 
reverence, cannot bridge, much less any cul- 
ture by human effort. 

Self-righteousness denies the thunderous 
and climacteric words of the Son of God in 
which he declares that unless a man be born 
again he cannot even see the kingdom of God. 

This self-righteousness, added to all the 
denial it makes of the things of God so stated, 
has the hardihood to offer to God that human 
nature which he has judged and rejected. It 
sets aside God's own solemn Word, exalts the 
word of man and, in exalting the righteous- 
ness of man, denies the righteousness of God. 
In denying the righteousness of God, it denies 
God himself. 

And God does not allow us to wait long in 
knowing his response. He rejects the offer- 
ing of Cain and accepts the offering of Abel. 
Abel is the brother of Cain. He represents 
the second born, the second birth, the spiritual 
life and apprehension. 

He brings before God an offering, an offer- 
ing so terrible, so repulsive, that we turn away 
with a shiver. On a low mound of earth he 
lays a spotless, helpless lamb, and then with 
a sudden, quick stroke of his sharp, merciless 
knife, he cuts its throat till the crimson stream 
stains all its beating sides. Every natural 



190 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

sentiment rises up and repudiates the scene. 
Between the offering of Cain and the offering 
of Abel there is no possible comparison. 
Everything in the offering of Cain appeals to 
the natural mind. It is aesthetic, it is beauti- 
ful, it bears witness to the toil, the strain, the 
labor and the industry of Cain. The offering 
of Abel has not one thing in it to recommend 
it to the sense of the beautiful in us. In con- 
templating it there is only a feeling of horror 
rising into antagonism and indignation against 
Abel himself. Our sympathies go out to Cain ; 
we, unconsciously, admire him for what he 
has wrought. We feel in our inmost soul like 
denouncing Abel, driving him from our pres- 
ence as a cruel and senseless butcher. 

If, therefore, in the offering of Abel there 
cannot be found the most intellectual as well 
as spiritual reasons for it, the record of the 
scene with all its sickening and useless brutal- 
ity is enough to wipe that part of the Bible 
from the face of the earth and throw grave 
and just doubts upon the integrity of the rest. 

But the offering of Abel justifies itself at 
every point of view. In that hour Abel takes 
God's side against himself. He owns God's 
estimate as supreme and true. He says in 
effect : 

"O God! thy Word is true. I am a sinner 
in nature as well as practice. Thou knowest 
me altogether. Thou knowest I have no 
power of righteousness in me that can meet 



the devil's righteousness 191 

thy demands. I have inherited the sentence 
of death in direct descent because of what I 
am as well as what I do. According to thy 
judgment, thou who canst not lie, I ought to 
die. I do not attempt to discuss with thee upon 
the justice of that sentence. Thou sayest it. 
It is thy Word. Thy Word is the end of all 
controversy. I surrender and own the judg- 
ment just. But, O God, if I take thee at thy 
Word concerning judgment I will also take 
thee at thy Word concerning grace. At 
Eden's gates thou didst provide a sacrifice by 
which my parents might come unto thee; on 
the basis of that sacrifice thou didst cover 
their sin and give them the strength of a new 
and spiritual life. And thou hast said, by that 
tremendous act, that if I bring an offering of 
blood before thee thou wilt also accept me. 
I offer thee this spotless lamb as my substi- 
tute, I offer his death as the expiation of my 
guilt and nature in thy sight." 

In a word, Abel looked through this scene 
to the far away cross of Christ, and in the 
slain lamb saw a picture of the crucified, and 
looking there, by faith, offered to God the 
sacrifice which God himself had provided. 

In offering this slain lamb Abel took God 
at his Word, accepted his estimate, owned his 
righteousness, and took the place of dependent 
faith on God. 

The offering of Cain was more beautiful, 
but it dishonored God in denying the testi- 
mony of God. 



192 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

Abel's offering had no beauty in it. It was 
full of judgment, sin-bearing, sorrow and 
death, but it honored God in taking him at 
his Word. 

And God met his faith. 

Fire leaped from heaven and consumed the 
sacrifice. Abel was accepted and Cain 
rejected. 

And let it be remembered, the acceptance 
and the rejection had nothing to do with the 
two men in themselves. Abel was not accepted 
because he was intrinsically a good man, and 
Cain rejected because he was intrinsically a 
bad man. 

No I Abel was accepted because his offer- 
ing pleased the Lord. Cain was rejected be- 
cause his offering did not please the Lord. 

And Cain had the same opportunity as Abel. 
God asks him why his countenance is fallen. 
He tells him that the sin offering (not sin as 
it reads in the text) the sin offering, lieth at 
the door. There were other sheep or goats, 
Cain could have taken a lamb or a goat and 
offered a bloody offering before the Lord and 
he would have been accepted even as Abel. 
He did not He stood by his beautiful but 
insulting offering, and God rejected him. God 
rejected Cain's offering and from henceforth 
that offering is known as "The way of Cain." 
It is the way of Cain and not God. It is the 
way of the flesh and not the Spirit. It is the 



the devil's righteousness 193 

way of self-righteousness and not the right- 
eousness of God. 

It is the way of Cain. 

And as the righteousness which is so popu- 
lar to-day is self-righteousness, then this 
righteousness is none other than the way of 
Cain come to town again. 

You may find this way of Cain at every 
turn. You may see his offering wherever you 
glance. You will find it in the latest maga- 
zine article, in the motif of the latest story, 
the drawing attraction in the theatre, the 
heaped up beauty in some modern pulpits, 
where its flowers are transformed into the 
rhythm, the philosophy, and the bloodless theol- 
ogy of modern poets; it is the inspiration for 
the curriculae of many colleges and gives 
fragrance to baccalaureate sermons and com- 
mencement appeals. 

Wherever you hear men talking about the 
universal fatherhood of God and the universal 
brotherhood of man, appealing to the sweet- 
ness and light within, and openly and posi- 
tively denying the need of the blood of atone- 
ment, and bringing Jesus Christ down to the 
level of a common and elder brother, you may 
know that it is the way of Cain setting itself 
up once more. 

And whence comes the sudden revival of 
this offering, this startling and widespread ex- 
ploitation of self righteousness, the righteous* 
ness without blood? 



194 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

The Apostle Paul tells us. In 2 Corinth- 
ians, 11:14, 15, it is written, "Satan him- 
self is transformed into an angel of light 
. . . .his ministers. . . as the Ministers 
of Righteousness." 

There are would-be thinkers who make light 
of the doctrine of the personality of the Devil. 
They spell devil without a d as they spell 
God with two o's. Good and evil is their 
scheme. 

And there never was a more unintellectual, 
untenable proposition in the world than that 
evil, in itself, is impersonal. Evil as an active 
property, as a force working in the world, 
does not exist apart from personality. The 
evil that is wrought in the world is wrought 
through personality and intellectuality. The 
combinations of evil as seen in human life bear 
witness at times to a keenness of intellectual- 
ity and a strength of individuality and per- 
sonality that are altogether beyond the ca- 
pacity of the immediate agent, who seems like 
unto one taken in the snare of a fowler, and 
hypnotized by suggestions entirely above and 
independent of his own. 

I am willing to believe that many of those 
who deny the personality of the Devil in such 
a light and easy way do not see the full con- 
clusion to which such a premise must neces- 
sarily lead them. They do not see that the 
denial of the personality of the devil is the 
equivalent denial of the personality of the 



the devil's righteousness 195 

Son of God and, in the end, the total destruc- 
tion of his character as a sinless man. 

And yet all this is true; for it is to be re- 
membered that our Lord Jesus is inducted 
into his work and office on earth through the 
gateway of the Devil's temptation. 

That temptation was either subjective or 
objective. 

If the Devil is not a distinct personality, 
then it was subjective; that is to say, Jesus 
was tempted from within and not from with- 
out. If this be so, then Jesus had evil within 
him. If he had evil within him he was not 
sinless. If he was not sinless within he could 
not be sinless in action. If he was not sinless 
in action he was sinful in nature. If he was 
sinful in nature he was not conceived through 
the Holy Ghost. He was not virgin born. He 
is not God the Son. He cannot be the Saviour 
and Redeemer of men. 

If the Devil was not personal, the character 
of Jesus Christ is irremediably gone. 

If the Devil was not personal, then Jesus 
Christ was not personal. The language 
which sets forth the one sets forth the other. 

The force of language in relation to the 
one must be accepted in relation to the other. 

If then Jesus Christ was personal, the Devil 
was also. 

And this is the doctrine of the Word of God. 

There are those who accept the person- 
ality of the Devil, but who limit his operations 



196 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

and agency. They look upon him as the agent 
alone of out-breaking vice and sin. They 
associate him with all that is repulsive and 
brutal; all that is sickening and horrible. 

There never was a greater mistake. 

The Apostle declares that in this age Satan 
is transformed into an angel of light. He 
seeks to do his most subtle work, not as a 
repulsive, unattractive devil, but as an angel 
of light. He seeks to win by the aesthetic 
and the beautiful. 

His ministers are not the coarse and sicken- 
ing agents of a rank and repulsive wickedness, 
they are ministers of righteousness. 

The ministry of Satan in this hour is the 
ministry of righteousness. 

But what kind of righteousness? 

Surely it cannot be the righteousness that 
comes by way of the blood of the cross. 

The whole attitude of the Devil to that cross 
makes it impossible. 

Look at the attitude of the Devil to the 
cross. 

His one continual effort was to keep Christ 
from offering himself there as the divinely ap- 
pointed sacrifice. 

On the mount of temptation he tried to lead 
him to commit suicide by throwing himself 
from the roof of the temple. Failing in that 
he incited the crowd at Nazareth to throw him 
over the hillside and kill him ; nevertheless he 



the devil's righteousness 197 

escaped out of their hands. After this he put it 
into the mind of a lot of conspirators to induce 
him, if possible, to claim the crown of Judea 
and thus declare open rebellion against the 
rule of the Caesar. He hoped that conflict 
would arise and the Son of God be killed in 
the melee. In the garden of Gethsemane he 
sought to drive the blood out of his veins; 
he tried to produce a hemorrhage and thus 
kill him before he could reach the cross. 
On the cross he tempted him with the su- 
preme temptation of his earthly career. He 
moved the people to gather about him and 
taunt him with his apparent helplessness ; say- 
ing unto him that if he were indeed the Son 
of God, let him come down from the cross 
and everybody would believe in him. Jesus 
knew that sixty thousand angels unseen were 
above him ready, if he so desired, to lift him 
from the cross; this is his own testimony. 
There was nothing for Jesus to do but give 
one glance and they would have so lifted him. 
Had he done so he could never have been 
the redeemer of men, and the hope of re- 
demption would have gone out in a devil's 
laugh. The Devil sought to win here and 
failed; for, shortly after that, the Son of 
God cried, "It is finished," and dismissed his 
own spirit. 

This persistent attitude of the Devil bears 
witness, in spite of the failure, that he was 
against the cross and hates the blood of it. 



198 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

In the nature of the case then, when he 
sends his ministers out to preach a right- 
eousness, it cannot be the righteousness that 
comes by the blood of the cross. It must be 
a righteousness without blood. And as the 
righteousness that is now being preached 
everywhere is a righteousness without blood, 
then it is the righteousness which Satan is 
sending his ministers forth to preach. 

It is the Devil's righteousness. 

And in seeking to preach this righteousness 
the Devil is keen and wise. If he can suc- 
ceed in leading men to be good and kind, and 
pure, and righteous, without faith in a cruci- 
fied Christ, he has won a great victory. 

Suppose for a moment the Devil should lead 
this Twentieth century into a drunken orgy of 
sin and shame and outbreaking vice and in- 
iquity, what would happen ? 

There would be a reaction to the cross and 
the blood of Christ. 

When, in the French Revolution, they 
took a bedizzened prostitute and putting 
the cap of licentiousness in the name of 
liberty on her head seated her on the 
high altar of Notre Dame; when the old 
church under the shadow of the Holies was 
invaded by the unspeakable men and women 
of that quarter and the quarters of Saint 
Antoine and Saint Denis and turned into a 
house of indescribable ill fame, and scenes 
took place there that chroniclers of the hour 



the devil's righteousness 199 

never dared to put upon the printed page in 
full; when the filth and stench, and unmea- 
sured bestiality of the gutters of Paris 
swelled and overflowed and flooded the city 
with their human sewage, their putridity, their 
reeking sensualism, lust and debauchery, the 
depths in this out-break of human wickedness 
and devilishness were so appalling, that 
there came a sudden halt, and a lightning- 
like reaction from democracy and republican- 
ism, from irreligion and infidelity, to legitimacy 
and intense Catholicism. 

Let the Devil lead the world into an out- 
break of unfettered sin and the law of utili- 
tarianism, the law of self-defence, would, in a 
great degree, drive the world to the foot of 
the cross and there cry for the expiation which 
that cross alone affords. 

If, on the contrary, Satan should lead men 
to repudiate vice and sin and live lives of ap- 
parent truth and righteousness apart from 
the cross of Christ, he would throw them back 
in confidence on themselves and make the re- 
pudiation of the cross of Christ universal. 
And this is what he is trying to do. 

This is why he is preaching righteousness. 

He would like to see this righteousness 
established and practised everywhere. 

The Devil would be glad to see prohibition 
successful. Nothing would please him more 
than to be able to shut up every saloon and 
every house of shame. Nothing would please 



200 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

him better than to see the world going on in 
the walk of decency and outward cleanness. 

It may be said the world is full of this out- 
breaking sin and shame, and that it is the Devil 
who in the last analysis is really the cause of 
it. This is true, and the explanation is simple 
enough. God is salt. To be without God is to 
be without salt. To be without salt is to be 
essentially corrupt. The Devil is without God. 
There is no God within him. He is without 
salt. He is absolute corruption. From that 
day when in the beginning he turned away 
from fellowship with God and became a devil 
because of this very separation from God, he 
has been growing more and more corrupt. He 
is like a leper. No matter what a leper may 
touch he corrupts it. His intention may be 
the best in the world, whatever he touches he 
corrupts. Whatever may be the intention of 
the Devil, no matter how much he may in- 
tend to keep a man clean, the very moment he 
touches him he makes him more or less cor- 
rupt. Nevertheless, in this age, he is making 
a supreme effort to minimize his power of re- 
pulsive corruption and achieve his own ends 
in leading men into a righteousness that does 
not go by way of the cross. To that end he is 
behind all movements that lead men away 
from the cross. He is willing that men shall 
believe anything but the efficacy of the blood. 
With him it is anything but the blood. He is 
willing that men shall believe in the Father- 



the devil's righteousness 201 

hood of God. That is a great scheme of the 
Devil, — to appeal to men to consider the 
fatherliness of God. He is willing that men 
shall glorify the earthly life of the Son of 
God. He is pleased when men speak of his 
goodness and righteousness. It pleases him 
whenever Christ is held up as a good example 
to men. He is delighted whenever he can 
hear a preacher exhort his hearers to follow 
the example of Christ. He is willing that 
men shall grow pathetic over the sorrow and 
tragedy of the cross. He is willing that men 
shall see Jesus there as a martyr, as one who 
came too far in advance of his time — but, as a 
divine sacrifice — as shedding the blood that 
atones for sin and can alone redeem a soul 
from sin and the power of death — Never ! 

Anything but the blood. 

But the keenest and the most successful 
line of operation is to lead men to preach a 
righteousness without blood and to lead men 
to offer that righteousness in the belief that it 
is satisfying to God. 

This ministry of righteousness without 
blood is a masterpiece effort of Satanic 
agency. It is worthy of him who is called 
"that old serpent which is the devil and 
Satan." 

Remember it therefore well, the righteous- 
ness which is now abroad in the earth is the 
righteousness of the Devil, — the Devil's right- 
eousness. 



202 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

Whenever, therefore, you hear men talking 
about righteousness, test it and see whether it 
has the blood of the cross in it. In the cata- 
combs, when they wished to know if the dead 
body that was brought there for burial was the 
body of a true martyr, a faithful witness of 
Christ, they pulled aside the robe or winding 
sheet; if they found a small vial filled with 
blood, they knew that this had been a true and 
not a false martyr. When you hear or read 
of righteousness in this day, pull aside the 
fold of it and see whether it has the blood of 
the cross in it. 

When you hear preachers testifying that all 
men are the sons of God by nature, that the 
fatherhood of God is the pre-eminent thing, 
and that each man has in himself an equivalent 
power with which to meet the righteousness 
of God, you may know, whether these preach- 
ers themselves know it or not, and no matter 
how honest and true they may be, that they 
are the ministers of Satan, preaching a right- 
eousness without blood, a self-righteousness 
that denies the truth and the warning of 
God, and is nothing less than the Devil's right- 
eousness. 

And this ministry of bloodless righteousness 
is a sign of the last times. It is a sign of that 
time of which the Apostle Paul so clearly 
warns, in which the church shall depart from 
the faith, be turned from the truth, and turned 
to fables; when it shall be spoiled through 



THE devil's righteousness 203 

philosophy and vain deceit of men; when it 
will listen to the imaginations and suggestions 
of the flesh, to the word of man rather than 
the Word of God. 

It is a sign of that time of which our Lord 
foretold, that time when false teachers should 
come in his name and preach a righteousness 
and apparent truth that denies his name; the 
time when men should talk in the name of 
Christ and lead men away from the true 
Christ. 

It is a sign that the Coming of the Lord 
draweth nigh. 

That hour when he will secretly descend into 
the upper heavens to take those who have been 
ransomed by his blood and claimed it as their 
atoning shelter, to himself; and then, later, be 
revealed in unlimited judgment upon a world 
fooled by the Devil's righteousness and with- 
out the righteousness divine. 

It behooves every one to know where he 
stands. 

If you are building on your own righteous- 
ness, if you are offering that to God and ex- 
pecting to find security in it, then it is time 
you awoke and were undeceived. 

Hear again what God says : There are none 
righteous. All have sinned and come short of 
the glory of God. The sentence of death has 
passed upon all men. There is no righteous- 
ness in which you can stand before God 
(except the righteousness wrought through the 



204 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, and in him. All your righteousness, 
the very best though it be in the world, before 
him, is no better than filthy rags. 

It is time you awoke to the fact that the 
great issue in its last analysis is, the issue of 
the blood. 

That was the issue between God and Cain. 

That was the difference in final terms be- 
tween Cain and Abel. 

The difference between them was blood. 

Abel was accepted because he offered the 
blood of sacrifice. 

Cain was rejected because he did not offer it. 

That was the difference on the dark night 
in Egypt between the Egyptians and the Jews. 

The death angel went forth at midnight. 
Wherever he found the blood of a sacrificial 
lamb sprinkled upon the door of a house he 
passed over, recognizing that the blood was 
the blood of a substitute, that the lamb had died 
in their stead. Wherever he found a house 
without blood upon it, no matter what the 
character of those within, no matter how good 
they were, he entered and smote the first born. 

The difference between the saved and the 
lost in Egypt that night was the blood of a 
lamb. 

And that is the difference now. 

If you are saved for time and eternity, it is 
because you have by faith taken shelter under 
the blood of the Lamb of God; you have 



the devil's righteousness 205 

claimed Christ as your sacrifice and personal 
substitute. 

If you have not taken shelter under that 
blood, if you have not claimed Christ by faith 
as your sacrifice and personal substitute, no 
matter how good and honest you are, you are 
not saved, you are under the judgment and 
condemnation of a holy God who can by no 
means clear those whom he considers guilty. 

It is the blood of Christ which alone gives 
title to heaven and the throne of God. 

Look at that scene in the seventh chapter 
of the Revelation. 

A great crowd of people are standing before 
the throne of God, and accepted of him. 

How did they get there? 

The Apostle John asks one of the elders 
who they are. He tells him certain things 
concerning them and then says that they "have 
washed their robes and made them white in 
the blood of the lamb/' 

And then he adds the tremendous con- 
clusion : 

"Therefore are they before the throne of 
God." 

"Therefore !" what an expletive that is. 

"They have washed their robes and made 
them white in the blood of the lamb, therefore 
are they before the throne of God." 

It is the blood of the lamb, the blood of 
Christ, that gives them title to the throne and 
presence of God. 



206 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

"The blood of the lamb" 

Never forget it! Not the flowers and the 
fruit of Cain's offering. Not the best culture 
of your human nature. Not the best in you. 
Not your goodness, sweetness and light. Not 
the righteousness without blood. Nay! and 
never ! 

The one and only thing that can give you 
title to the throne and presence of God is the 
blood of that lamb who was slain on the cross 
at Calvary, God's Christ, the seeking Saviour 
of men. 

May God lead you, if you have not already 
done so, to offer to God by faith the sacrifice 
which he at infinite cost has provided for you, 
and receive from him that new and spiritual 
life which will enable you to walk in the ways 
of righteousness and truth, be master over sin 
and self, and a living reincarnation of the Son 
of God on earth. Let me appeal to you to tear 
aside your own self-righteousness which is but 
a foul and loathsome thing in the sight of God, 
the concrete of self-boasting and actual denial 
of the true God, fling yourself at the foot of 
the cross, own the all-sufficient sacrifice, re- 
ceive the benediction of his grace and life, and 
know that you are in Christ, and in him the 
very "righteousness of God in him." 

Do this before it is too late; before the swift 
descending Christ reveals your sad deception 
and summons you to a judgment in which 
your poor self-righteousness shall shrivel as a 
withered leaf before an all-devouring flame. 



MENTAL ASSASSINATION 

OR 

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 



A Physical, Intellectual, Moral and 
Spiritual Peril 

Recently, the words "Mental Assassination" 
have been reported in the daily journals and 
repeated in conversation from one end of the 
country to the other. 

Assassination ! 

That is an ugly word. It brings a thrill, 
a shiver. It has in itself the power to depict 
a scene. 

It is night. A figure comes gliding down 
through the shadows of the street. It stops 
and contemplates a certain house. Then it 
moves with stealthy step to the rear of the 
building. A window is softly opened. Now 
the figure is standing inside the dining room. 
The dark lantern is lit. A subdued ray shows 
the gleam of something steel-like in the man's 
hand. His feet are shod with slippers. He 
finds the stairs. He goes up the steps with a 
tread as light and noiseless as a thirsty tiger 



208 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

seeking its prey. He enters the sleeping room. 
The long, regular breathing tells that the 
owner of the house is deep in sleep. The 
light from the lantern' is turned on enough to 
show the location of the sleeper's heart. 
There is a quick down-stroke, a strange thud, 
as when a knife strikes human flesh — a moan 
— and the hideous thing vanishes from the 
room — gathers its booty and disappears as it 
came. The next morning the streets are ring- 
ing with the newsboy's cry, "Man murdered. 
Man assassinated." 

But this word "assassination" is now quali- 
fied. It is not assassination alone, but "Mental" 
assassination. The qualificative does not mod- 
ify the force of the word, it intensifies it. It 
does not take away the fact of death, it makes 
it all the more terrible. It announces a new 
instrumentality, it reveals a sure and subtle 
skill. The new instrumentality is mind. It is 
assassination produced by the operation of 
mind upon mind. Mental power is brought to 
bear upon another till the personality of that 
other is affected, the will power and the de- 
cision paralyzed. The person so affected can- 
not walk down stairs without risk of falling or 
stumbling, without danger to life or limb, can- 
not cross a street or get on a car without im- 
minent peril. The nervous system yields to 
the strain. It grows weak, fear becomes a 
torment, the mental pressure is terrific, there 
is a collapse, and the victim dies — has been 
assassinated, killed, murdered, just as much 



MENTAL ASSASSINATION 209 

as though stabbed to death by a knife in the 
murderer's hand. 

This is mental assassination! 

Is such a thing possible? 

It is said to be possible. It is said to be 
actually true. 

A particular person, a young married 
woman, at her home one night, felt a strange, 
cold, icy blast blowing upon her, chilling her 
to the very heart. She plunged into hot baths, 
but could not arrest the icy chill. She under- 
stood what it was. A person she knew well, 
at that time distant many miles from her, one 
who had been her teacher in mental culture, 
in spite of the great distance that separated 
them, was now exercising malicious animal 
magnetism, was sending mental death waves 
upon her. She felt herself being paralyzed, 
upon the very threshold of death. She took 
up her New Testament and tried to read it 
as an antidote to this mental assault. At that 
moment her husband came in. He was the 
picture of terror, every nerve was unstrung. 
In getting off the train he barely escaped a 
fatal accident. He felt he was being pursued, 
hounded, by some strange, unseen force, to his 
own destruction. 

All this is related with evident sincerity, 
with an intensity of dramatic fervor, with 
minuteness of detail and a sense of horrorism 
which surpasses even the language and the 
method of a Poe. 



210 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

Is it true ? 

No matter whether it be true or not, such a 
concept is a disaster to any community. For 
any considerable body of men and women to 
believe in such a thing and be affected by it, 
living in constant dread as though the assassin 
were upon their tracks, looking with suspicion 
upon every face, and shivering in anticipation 
of the fatal but unseen blow, such a concept 
is a moral as well as intellectual disaster to 
any community. 

But if such a concept should arise from the 
midst of a system of religion, it would be 
enough to damn that religion, no matter though 
it came in the name of God and his Christ, and 
were borne to the door of every house on 
arch-angelic wings and amid the burst of 
high hosannas from angelic choirs. 

And this concept does arise from the midst 
of a professedly religious system. It arises 
from the midst of that system known as 
Christian Science. Christian Science gives 
occasion to this concept because it belongs to 
the category of mental operation. It gives 
rise to it because in its final analysis Christian 
Science is a lawless and exaggerated hypno- 
tism. Hypnotism is the operation of mind 
upon mind through the law of suggestion. A 
certain individual has a fancy that he cannot 
go down the street beyond a fixed point. At 
this point he balks and will go no farther. He 
has all sorts of reasons about it and cannot be 



MENTAL ASSASSINATION 2 1 1 

persuaded to change his resolution. A friend 
who has an exceptionally strong will and a 
compelling power of mind suggests to him 
that he is guilty of a great absurdity, that 
there is every reason for him to repudiate his 
fancy and go beyond the hindering spot and, 
finally, prevails upon him to go. Another 
has a splitting headache or some nervous dis- 
order that incapacitates him for work. He is 
continually talking about his ailments to 
others. He makes a cult of them. He is 
wholly taken up with them. His friends fall 
into the habit of inquiring about them, dis- 
cussing them. His ills in reality become his 
occupation till he is nothing bettered but al- 
ways worse. A strong minded and strong 
willed friend determines to cure him. He be- 
gins by telling him how well he looks. He 
persists in telling him that. He suggests that 
he shows evidence of increased strength and 
vigor. He laughs at the idea of any real dis- 
ease, declares he needs more exercise, points 
out the very exercise he ought to take. So 
constant is he in the suggestion of health and 
strength that the sick man yields. He begins 
to think himself that he is well. Finally, he 
says he is well. Soon he is so taken up with 
his "wellness" that he forgets his illness. He 
is actually well. He finds his normal condi- 
tion. It is the case of the substitution of one 
will power for another, the weaker is rein- 
forced by the stronger. Having no definite 



212 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

will of his own, he has been in the flotsam and 
the jetsam of his own weakness and the mis- 
directed wills of others. Having at last yielded 
to the strong will which suggests the positive 
health attitude, he is dominated and governed 
by it. 

It is an issue of wills. 

Christian Science takes up this issue. It 
divides humanity into two classes of wills, the 
dominant and the submissive wills. The dom- 
inant wills are the possible healers, the sub- 
missive wills are the patients. The aim of 
Christian Science is to cultivate each of these 
wills. It would increase the power of domi- 
nance in the one and the state of submissive- 
ness in the other. It is on this principle of 
the stronger and the weaker will that it seeks 
to produce its cures and extend its influence. 
And it has a basis on which to proceed. There 
is in each human being a greater or less de- 
posit by nature of curative forces. Every phy- 
sician knows that it is not his drug, his 
remedy, which finally accomplishes the cure, 
it is nature herself. The best any physician 
can do is to appeal to these forces, free them 
from their cloggings or hindrances and gtt 
them to work. On this foundation of the cura 
naturae Christian Science operates. Through 
the law of suggestion it leads the patient to 
appeal to the curative forces within him and 
permit them to act unhinderedly. It does not 
tell the patient that this is the process. It 



MENTAL ASSASSINATION 2 1 3 

seeks to lead him to deny the existence of his 
sickness. It seeks by establishing the idea of 
negation, to allow the positivism of nature to 
assert itself; taking the hindering, objecting 
will of the sick man out of the way, the will 
that clogs and bars the true activities of the 
body, it points to the results of nature's loyal 
response to the yielded will and claims its 
proposition of no sickness proved. 

All this of course is mainly true and in lim- 
ited degree in the region of nervous disorders. 
So far, Christian Science has not restored a 
lost eye or a lost limb. Nevertheless, it must 
be noted that Mrs. Eddy claims these things 
can be done. She tells us in her monumental 
text book, "Christian Science and Health/' 
that the lobster has no mind, and, just because 
it has no mind, when it loses a claw it imme- 
diately replaces it by another. Mrs. Eddy 
asserts that the moment we can minimize the 
capacity of our mind, the moment we can 
reach the mental state of the lobster, we shall 
be able at will to replace any member of our 
body lost by accident or the surgeon's knife. 
Be that as it may, it is evident that the opera- 
tion of a strong will upon a weaker may lead 
it through the law of suggestion to bring 
about deliverance from many nervous troubles. 

But it ought to be equally evident that if 
this mental operation can produce a certain 
degree of good, it can also produce an enor- 
mous amount of evil. It ought to be clear 



214 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

that if any combination of strong minds and 
wills should be concentrated upon another 
mind and will; if the individual upon whom 
this influence was discharged had faith in the 
power of these minds and, at the same time, 
was pervaded by an intense and constant fear 
— it ought to be plain enough that the indi- 
vidual under such assault would yield, might 
fall into a state of will paralysis, break down, 
become a mental wreck and die. Thus the en- 
trance of one will into and pervading the mind 
and will of another, is precisely like the robber 
or the assassin who stealthily enters the home 
of another. The very idea that one personality 
can be invaded, possessed, obsessed by the 
personality of another, is disintegrating, de- 
moralizing and, in proportion as it is ex- 
panded and made a fact of experience, be- 
comes an unspeakable menace, an indescriba- 
ble physical danger to the community. 

Thus Christian Science is a Physical Peril. 

Christian Science is not only a physical 
peril, it is intellectual bankruptcy. 

If to-day the teachers in our public schools 
were teaching that there is no chemistry, no 
mathematics, no applied science, the result to 
the scholars would be intellectual disintegra- 
tion and disaster. It would mean mental and 
intellectual bankruptcy. 

Christian Science is doing that very thing! 

It teaches that there is no chemistry, no 
mathematics, no applied science. It teaches 



MENTAL ASSASSINATION 215 

all this by and through its fundamental propo- 
sition that there is no matter, that matter does 
not exist. If there is no matter there surely 
can be no chemistry. There are no original 
and radical elements, no qualities or distinct 
properties. There are no affiinities, no repul- 
sions, no possible combinations, mixtures or 
products. To say that one thing is a gas, an- 
other a salt ; that one thing is fluid and another 
solid; that there are deposits and precipitates, 
is absurd ; for, as there is no matter, there can 
be neither chemical properties nor substance. 
None of these things exist. Chemistry as a 
science, as a fact, is no better than the baseless 
fabric of a dream. 

If there is no matter there can be no mathe- 
matics, no addition, no minus and plus, no 
multiplication or division, no weight, density, 
form, measure, ratio or proportion. There 
can be no construction, no relation of part to 
part, no distance, no transit over that distance, 
no constructed means of locomotion. There 
can be no possible calculation. Astronomers 
tell us that the second on an astronomical 
meridian is equal to the twentieth part of the 
thickness of a hair, and that by means of this 
second, when used as the parallax of a star, 
its distance of over four billions of miles from 
our world may be accurately determined. 
Great mathematicians tell us that the undula- 
tion of the yellow ray of sodium is equal to 
the 590 millionth of a millimeter and should 



216 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

be used as the invariable standard of measure 
with which to compute the infinite distances 
of the heavenly bodies. But if there is no 
matter, then there is no sodium. If there is 
no sodium certainly there is no yellow ray. 
Where there is no yellow ray there can be no 
undulation thereof. Where there is no undu- 
lation there is no measure and the suggested 
standard, the 590 millionth of a millimeter, is 
a fanciful fiction. No such computation or 
calculation is possible. Calculation itself is 
impossible. Without calculation there is an 
end of mathematics. There is, therefore, no 
such thing as mathematics. Mathematics do 
not exist. 

Christian Science teaches all that in deny- 
ing matter. Such teaching is intellectual 
bankruptcy. 

It is more than that, it is moral bankruptcy. 

The logic of no matter means that the uni- 
verse is a deception. All creation is a lie. 
Nothing we see, or hear, or touch, or feel is 
true. Our whole environment is a falsehood 

That sunrise is a falsehood, a rank deception. 

Turn your gaze to the eastern sky. It is 
domed with darkness. Suddenly, the dark- 
ness is shot through and through to the zenith 
with arrows of light, each arrow tipped with 
gold and turning to streams of crimson fire. 
The blackness breaks into masses of grey 
clouds, and these flee away like scattered 
squadrons of a frightened foe before the on- 



MENTAL ASSASSINATION 2 1 7 

coming of the king. The great dome is 
changed to a canopy of infinite blue. Other 
clouds rise and sweep forward like the king's 
retainers, clothed with fleece such as kings 
wear, fringed with purple and amethyst and 
heavy with gold. The sun rises, at first a 
thin rim of quivering glory on the low hori- 
zon, afterwards a blazing circumference, fill- 
ing all the world of earth and sky with out- 
spreading splendor; and then, at last, with the 
assured power of measureless strength, as- 
cending regally to that upper throne where 
for the day he reigns supreme. 

And all this is a lie, a deception, an error 
of mortal mind, Every ray of silver flashing, 
every gleam of golden glory, is proclaiming 
to our attentive souls that we have been 
fooled, deceived and trifled with — there is no 
sunrise and no wealth of changing color. 

Look at the sunset. 

View it from the deck of ship in mid-ocean. 
The great ball of fire swings slowly down to 
touch the wave, and then, turning to a wheel 
of fire, burns its deep rut of flame into the 
breaking wave, the waters rising up to swal- 
low its palpitating circumference, and the 
night dropping down from above to draw over 
it the deep darkness, as when a hood is drawn 
over the face of one condemned; there is a 
quiver of light like a great voiceless protest — 
then it is gone as a lamp blown out in a sudden 
wind, and far upward in the night sky the 



218 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

calm stars serenely watch where a blazing 
world has been. 

But every ray of splendor from that sinking 
sun, every flame of color from that slow 
descending world, is a falsehood. There is 
no sunset, there is no color, there is no sun. 

Mark that storm at sea. 

Note how the heavens bend down. A dark 
cloud like a giant hand reaches to the very 
depths and entrails of the sea, gathers the 
waves in its fist, lifts them and flings them till 
they fall and rise again, bellowing as wild 
beasts bellow. The winds let loose among 
them like unseen tormentors with roaring 
voices and smiting whip-lashes, drive them in 
a tumult against each other, filling them with 
foam and fury, and sending them to dash 
themselves with crash and thunder and hoarse 
cryings on the sounding shore, dragging with 
them masts and spars of sinking ships and 
bodies of drowning men and women. 

And all this scene is a lie — an unreal thing. 
No waves ever break, no winds ever wail, or 
cry, or sweep, no storm ever thunders above 
land or sea. There is neither land nor sea; 
for, there is no matter. 

That glorious landscape! 

It is four o'clock of a summer's afternoon. 
The hills are all a-swoon in the soft encircling 
haze. The tree tops are turned to velvet 
browns and dusky greens. The brook babbles 
lazily on its shining, rippling way, each 



MENTAL ASSASSINATION 219 

whitened pebble gleaming up through the 
parted silver of its flow. You lie stretched at 
ease in the shadows amid the sedgy grass and 
hear the hum of insect life, and dream your- 
self in a world where foreheads have no 
wrinkles and hearts no care. Well-a-day! it 
is alf a dream. From first to last it is all a 
dream. There is no noisy brook, no hills that 
lie in misty depths, no over-arching sky of 
kindly blue. It is all a falsehood of those ly- 
ing things we call the senses. 

Yes, all is deception and arrant falsehood, 
a mean, deceiving hypocrisy — the clasp of 
hands, the touch of lips, the voice of promise, 
the covenant oath, the men and women and 
laughing children whom you meet. That 
woman with the rounded form, the classic con- 
tour, the shape divine, eyes whose depths 
draw down your soul, and whose hands reach 
out to claim you as her own and make quick 
profit of your soft surrendered will ; that man 
with the torso of an Apollo, the brow of an 
Olympian god, the gesture of imperial power ; 
that child with the sun-kissed ringlets and 
mouth of rosebud and smiles of innocence; 
these, with song of birds and fragrance of 
flowers ; these things of earth, and all the shin- 
ing things of night which in that upper heaven 
we call the starry worlds — these are rank de- 
ceptions, creations of mortal error, founda- 
tionless in fact, figments of fancy, the fading 
spectres, the unreal ghosts of unreal and empty 
things. 



220 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

And what does this environment of illusion, 
of delusion, deception and falsehood mean? 
It means the universe in which we supposedly 
live is making, not for righteousness, but for 
unrighteousness. This seeming creation by 
which we are surrounded being a falsehood in- 
spires to falsehood concerning ourselves. It 
is impossible to live in a world where all we 
see, hear, feel and touch, is untrue, without 
being inspired to untruth ourselves. Being un- 
der obligation to deny as real every out- 
ward and visible fact, our relation to ourselves 
and to each other can be only one continued 
falsehood, one maze, one round of deception, 
hypocrisy and false pretence. 

This is the logic of that fundamental propo- 
sition of Christian Science — no matter. 

Such a system with such a proposition 
means intellectual bankruptcy and moral deg- 
radation. 

Christian Science is a paralysis. 

It is a paralysis of all the sweet humanities, 
of all the helpful amenities of mortal life. 

It enables a mother to look with cold in- 
difference on the crushed, bleeding form of 
her child, crushed and bleeding from a fright- 
ful accident and say, "There is no accident. 
There is no matter. There is no pain. My 
child does not suffer/' 

It enables the wife to look with unmoved 
calmness while her husband tosses in the 
throes of fever and say, with even speech, "He 



MENTAL ASSASSINATION 221 

does not suffer. There is no fever; for there 
is no matter in which fever can burn. Nay! 
the truth is — actually — he does not have a 
body at all." 

It enables men and women to walk amid the 
sorrowing and the troubled and shed no tears, 
because they deny the existence of sorrow, or 
want, or woe. It is true, that the clasp of a 
hand has helped many a weak soul to fight 
another battle. It is true, that in this busy 
life, a kind and sympathetic word spoken at 
the right moment has helped men and women 
to stand true and steadfast in the hour of 
trial. It is true, that a tear of fellowship with 
another's sorrow has sweetened the bitterness 
of that soul and enabled him to sing his song 
of hope in the night of despair and go for- 
ward to a better day; but this system, this 
professed religion, this Christian Science, par- 
alyzes all that. 

It denies the right of any human heart to 
have sympathy, or consideration for another's 
pain or woe. It teaches that to speak a word 
of sympathy, to let fall a tear, to weep with 
those who weep, to own and try to bear the 
burden under which another falls, is to sus- 
tain the false idea that men and women do 
have cares or sorrows or such things as heart 
ache and pain. Christian Science repudiates 
all this humanness and turns men and women 
into cold-blooded, self-centered, pulseless ego- 
tists; and if it could influence all the human 



222 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

race to its inhuman conclusions, it would cre- 
ate a world from which the angels of mercy 
and love would flee in horror as from the 
midst of a race of frozen monsters. 

Yes, Christian Science paralyzes all that 
makes humanity helpful and attractive: all 
that saves the race from becoming a mob of 
incarnate devils. 

Christian Science is a system of absolute 
immorality. 

What would you say if every minister in 
the land were teaching that lying, cheating, 
swearing, drunkenness, robbery and murder 
were not crimes ; that there was no sin in any 
of these things? 

And yet that is just what Christian Science 
is teaching. 

Christian Science teaches that lying, cheat- 
ing, swearing, drunkenness, robbery and mur- 
der are not crimes; that there is no sin in 
them. 

You hold up your hands in horror and say, 
"Nay! it cannot be. No such system would 
dare to come before an enlightened com- 
munity and teach that." 

But Christian Science does do that. 

Christian Science teaches that, because 
Christian Science says there is no such thing 
as sin. Just as much as the proposition that 
matter does not exist is fundamental to Chris- 
tian Science, so is the proposition that there 
is no sin. Again and again Christian Science 



MENTAL ASSASSINATION 223 

repeats that postulate. Over and over again 
in every imaginable form of statement it pro- 
claims that sin is not a fact, that there is no 
fact, no actuality in sin. Sin is a false con- 
cept, it does not exist at all. 

Now, if there is no such thing as sin, if sin 
does not exist, then no act of any kind can be 
sin. 

The man who fails to meet the standards of 
righteousness and truth, the woman who al- 
lows the ermine of her chastity to be soiled, 
have committed no sin. No matter what the 
world's standards may be ; no matter what the 
judgments of courts may pronounce; no 
matter what the legal, physical, moral, or 
penal consequences of any act may be, there is 
no sin. It will not do to say that the false 
idea that sin exists produces evil results. It 
is impossible! As there is no sin, no actual 
evil of any sort, no matter what the concept, 
the consequences cannot be evil or sinful ; for, 
here is a proposition that is utterly inviolable, 
it is this: where there is no fact of sin there 
can be no act of sin. 

What then must be the actual moral con- 
dition of an inner expert circle of Christian 
Science where men and women do not be- 
lieve there is any such fact as sin; and that 
no matter what the concept, or the yielding to 
the concept may be, there never can be an act 
that is really sin? What an amazing system 
t>y which the dishonored man and ^ e fallen 



224 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

woman may deliver both conscience and con- 
sciousness of every deed, or word, or thought 
of sin. 

In all this world there is no system of 
human thought so packed with the germs, 
with the bacilli, of casuistic iniquity and soul 
deception. 

Christian Science is an unspeakable social 
wickedness. 

It denies the need and the exalted place of 
marriage. 

It denies the need of marriage as the means 
for the reproduction of the race. It denies it 
on the basis of this far reaching proposition 
that matter does not exist. As there is no 
matter there is no such thing as a human 
body. As there is no human body, then no 
man ever begot a child, no woman ever 
brought it to the birth. As man has never 
been born and cannot die, the race has neither 
increased nor decreased. It remains in statu 
quo. It has, therefore, no need of reproduc- 
tion. Marriage is not a necessity to that end. 
When a Christian Science wife reaches the 
high altitude where its much married and di- 
vorced founder now dwells, she will see that 
the woman who wishes a child has no need 
of the agency of a human father; all she has 
to do is to think intensely on the subject and 
she will bring forth a child; and this child, in 
the final analysis, will be an idea born of her 
mental contemplation and brought about by 



MENTAL ASSASSINATION 225 

self division — that is to say, on the principle 
of bacteria. 

Christian Science wives are to recognize 
that motherhood in the ordinary sense of the 
word is not the highest function of a wife. 
They are to recognize that marriage on a 
fleshly basis is utterly demoralizing and wholly 
disturbing to spiritual conception and must — 
as far as possible — be repudiated. Mother- 
hood, as motherhood has been understood 
since the beginning of the world, must be 
avoided. 

Motherhood avoided!! 

Motherhood put in the category of that 
which is below a woman's highest and noblest 
function ! ! ! 

This is the Christian Science idea of moth- 
erhood. 

Consider, I pray you, God's idea of mother- 
hood. 

I wish I could describe it to you. 

It is night in Judea. 

It is night above the little town of Bethle- 
hem. 

The heavens seem washed afresh with the 
waves of holiness and purity. Each world is 
as though newly burnished. Out there Orion 
gleams with his star studded belt. Above him 
the Pleiades scintillate like a handful of dia- 
monds flung down by the largess of a king. 
The constellations have sailed in together like 
a fleet of silver ships from an infinite sea. 



226 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

Two great planets in their rush to shine above 
the Bethlehem plains have come so near each 
other that the rim of the one seems indenting 
the other until they shine and glow like one 
vast, double star. From the heights far up, 
a great company of the tall angels of God 
come down to the borders of the softly sleep- 
ing world. Then a notable star detaches itself 
from the teeming heavens like a golden lamp 
let down by invisible chains and unseen mas- 
ter hands. Out of this swinging censer of 
flashing light and expanding splendor there 
floats upon the expectant air an incense of 
praise never before heard by the sons of men. 
And now it is the voice of the angelic choir 
that is heard. They sing and all the earth is 
still while the strange, heart-compelling music 
fills the listening ears of startled shepherds 
keeping their peaceful sheep. They look and 
they listen with awe-smitten souls; and lo, 
these stars are throwing down their tribute of 
light and these glory angels are singing their 
song and lifting their chants above a new born 
babe. All heaven is moved, all the universe 
is in commotion, over a babe. There in a 
stable by the way-side is a pure virgin girl 
and yet — a mother. In her arms she holds 
the wonder babe. Childhood and motherhood 
find all heaven bending above them. God, the 
Almighty, has selected a woman's life as the 
gateway by which he might come into this 
world. The Infinite has become an infant. 



MENTAL ASSASSINATION 227 

The eternal fatherhood owns and reveals di- 
vine sonship through human motherhood. 
From henceforth "Mother" is a holy name 
and childhood sacred with the touch of God. 

This is God's attitude to motherhood and 
childhood. 

But Christian Science degrades both moth- 
erhood and childhood. It degrades it to the 
level of merest flesh. In its eyes the love 
which leads a woman to give herself body and 
soul to the man whom she does love ; the love 
which leads a true man to exalt his wife as 
the purest and most wonderful thing in all 
the wide world and make her a radiant queen 
regnant over his life, in Christian Science, 
after all, is no better than the animalism of 
the field and the stockyard. Christian Science 
in principle would lead every young man and 
every young woman who would reach the 
farther heights, to set aside the idea of mar- 
riage. In the inner circle of Christian Science 
marriage is looked upon as on the lower plane 
of mortal mind and not amid the alpine peaks 
of spiritual discernment. In order to attain 
to this altitude of serene deliverance from the 
flesh, not only should the unmarried continue 
unmarried, but the married should ignore the 
marriage bond except in sublimated and ab- 
stract relation. 

In the nature of the case, therefore, Chris- 
tian Science leads wives to be separated from 
their husbands and, not infrequently, husbands 



228 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

to be separated from their wives. This sepa- 
ration is not always open but often in the 
secret of the family circle. Apparently one, 
and yet as far apart as though living in sun- 
dered worlds. 

Here is a man who worked and toiled all 
the day. To him when the day's work was 
over the thought of home was as comforting 
as the hope of a haven to a storm tossed mari- 
ner. When he entered the door his wife met 
him with a kiss, with arms about his neck, 
with a caress of love and heart's deep affec- 
tion that were like balm to his aching nerves, 
like fresh inspiration to his jaded will. But 
now — how changed all things. Since thait 
wife has become a Christian Scientist, she has 
been taught that marriage is only to be tol- 
erated, that affection must be abstract and not 
real; that she must not yield to the maternal 
sentiment and influence of love. When her 
husband meets her she is kind and attentive, 
but there is an atmosphere between them. To 
him she seems, indeed, to be living in another 
world whither he cannot follow her. He no 
longer receives the kiss, the caress, the re- 
sponse of heart to heart, the unfolding of all 
the treasures of her love and sympathy. He 
feels as one who has been chilled by an icy 
blast. He goes forth and by and by his feet 
are found in other paths for promised peace 
and comfort — and lo — there is a tragedy in 
that house. 



MENTAL ASSASSINATION 229 

Or, it is the husband who has become a 
Christian Scientist. His wife once looked 
upon him as the center and circumference of 
her home. It was her joy to love him and 
give herself wholly to him. But since he has 
become a Christian Scientist all that is 
changed. When he enters the home, he keeps 
her at a distance. To him she is now not so 
much his wife, the companion of his joys, as 
the subtle temptress of the flesh. If he should 
yield to her impulsive, natural attitude, she 
would drag him down, he thinks, to the low 
level of mortal mind — its fleshly illusions and 
spiritual destruction. Her heart cries out for 
love, and all that love may mean to a womanly 
and maternal heart. He steels himself against 
it. He dreads a Circe in the woman who 
wears his name. And she! she pines and 
shrinks away in an atmosphere that smothers 
and stifles every generous hope, every true 
and human impulse. 

A beautiful woman has told her story to 
the world. 

Christian Science entered her home and 
drew away from her the heart of him whom 
she loved and whose name she bore, of whose 
children she was the mother. She warns 
young women that Christian Science will de- 
stroy their noblest ideals and their purest 
hopes ; that it appeals to the baser passion of 
self and self's ways. She exhorts them to 



230 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

turn from it, to shun it as an evil thing, the 
source of sure and certain woe. 

Christian Science is a root of bitterness in 
the home. 

Men and women have told me and have 
written to me of the dark shadow in their 
homes since the blighting thing entered their 
portals. 

Christian Science does not openly forbid 
marriage. Openly it tolerates it and professes 
to set guards around it, but in secret discour- 
ages it. It teaches that marriage may for 
the present continue, but that celibacy is 
nearer right than marriage, the unmarried 
better than the married state. 

Left to itself, to work unhinderedly, Chris- 
tian Science will cast disrepute on marriage 
and break it down. Let it alone and it will 
overthrow marriage as the great, divine bul- 
wark of human society, the one uplifted dyke 
that keeps back the inflowing turgid tide of 
sensualism and black corruption. Christian 
Science would break down this defence, not 
all at once, but slowly, insidiously, and surely. 

When a ship comes to the ports of this 
country laden with pestilence and contagion, 
it is quarantined; and I say that this system, 
a system that gives rise to the suggestion of 
mental assassination; a system that is intel- 
lectually degrading; a system that paralyzes 
all the values of human comity, fellowship 
and sympathy ; a system that is downright im- 



MENTAL ASSASSINATION 231 

morality and actual social wickedness; a sys- 
tem that is a physical, intellectual, moral and 
social danger, ought to be quarantined and 
kept from the midst of decent society. 

But Christian Science is not only a social 
wickedness, it is a soul destroyer, a spiritual 
betrayer. It betrays Christianity. It is the 
Judas Iscariot of Christianity. It betrays it 
as Judas Iscariot betrayed the Son of God. 

Look at that scene of betrayal. 

It is night. It is half day and half night. 
You can see the great tree trunks, the old, 
gnarled olive trees, drawn in sharp silhouette 
against the changing sky. Men are coming 
and going with lanterns and staves. And now 
Judas comes up the green slope of the moun- 
tain. He approaches Jesus. He gives him 
the All hail and kisses him. Jesus steps back 
and says rebukingly, "J uc te s > betrayest thou 
the Son of man with a kiss?" 

Christian Science comes like Judas. 

It comes wuth the All hail of his name upon 
its lips. It gives him the kiss, and then it be- 
trays him. But it is shrewder than Judas. 
He sold his Master for thirty pieces of silver ; 
Christian Science sells him for many times 
thirty pieces of silver. It betrays him while 
it salutes and kisses him. It betrays him by 
denying everything for which he stands. Our 
Lord Jesus Christ stands for the personality 
of God, for prayer, for atonement by the 
shedding ©f blood, the resurrection of the 



232 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

body, ascension to, and session in, heaven, 
salvation through faith in him, salvation 
through faith in him and in and through no 
other, the second coming, final judgment and 
everlasting punishment of the unrighteous. 

Christian Science denies all this. 

It denies the personality of God. God is 
not a person. God is only a principle. There 
is no God in the universe to whom a tired soul 
may turn and say, "Thou," and call for help. 
No God in the universe who can look down on 
that weary soul and say, "Thou art my child, 
come unto me and rest." It denies prayer. 
There is nothing for which to pray. No one 
to whom to pray. It denies the virgin birth. 
It denies that Jesus was the Christ, denies the 
reality of his body, teaches that he was not al- 
ways spiritual, not always free from error. 
He never made atonement on the cross. His 
shed blood was of no more avail than when 
flowing in his veins. He never shed his blood. 
He never died on the cross. While the world 
thought he was dead and bound in the tomb, 
he was alive, hiding from the gaze of men. 
He never ascended to heaven. At that point 
of so-called ascension he disappeared. He 
ceased to exist. He does not exist to-day. 
The Jesus idea has given way to the Christ 
idea. There is no heaven, heaven is only a 
state of mind. There is no judgment to come. 
There is no hell, and there are none who are 
lost. No one needs to be saved from sin. In 



MENTAL ASSASSINATION 233 

Holy Scripture it is written, "This is a faith- 
ful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that 
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sin- 
ners." Christian Science takes up that scrip- 
ture and makes it to say, "Christ Jesus came 
into the world not to save sinners, but to save 
them from believing they were sinners/' 

Christian Science denies the Bible. It de- 
nies it as the infallible Word of God. It 
teaches that the Bible is a book full of errors, 
full of fables and fictions. It cannot be read 
safely without the key which Mrs. Eddy has 
invented. That key is her book, "Christian 
Science and Health," printed and sold at 
three dollars and a half a copy. No Christian 
Scientist must read the Bible apart from that 
book. Each Christian Scientist must purchase 
a copy. No Christian Scientist must lend or 
give away a copy. Christian Science by 
throwing doubts on the value of the Bible, 
charging it with error and falsehood, testi- 
fying that it has been put together and com- 
piled by men who were in the darkness of 
mortal mind, making it necessary to read 
"Christian Science and Health" in order that 
its fables and follies may be revealed and that 
the reader may not be led astray — Christian 
Science in doing all this, seeks steadily and 
subtly to betray the very citadel of truth. 
Follow Christian Science and sooner or later 
you will reject the Bible. 

Christian Science is Benedict Arnold and 



234 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

Judas Iscariot rolled into one. It has all the 
treason of Benedict Arnold and all the sordid- 
ness of Judas Iscariot. 

Compare the founder of Christianity with 
the founder of Christian Science. Look at 
the birth of Jesus. He was born in a road- 
side kahn. He was so poor that he wore a 
seamless robe, the common, every day badge 
of poverty. He was so poor, as he himself 
said, that the birds of the air had nests and 
the foxes had holes, but the Son of man had 
not where to lay his head. He owned no real 
estate. He found his food sometimes in a 
cornfield, and when he died was buried in a 
borrowed grave. 

But look at the founder of Christian Sci- 
ence. She owns real estate and plenty of it. 
She has had a beautiful home, and all the 
comfort and luxury of a well conducted busi- 
ness. She has recently settled a lawsuit in 
which she paid over some hundreds of thous- 
ands of dollars. 

Jesus went forth and healed the sick with- 
out money and without price. 

This woman draws her income from the 
money of her dupes. 

Jesus went among the poor and the lowly. 
It was said of him, "This man receiveth sin- 
ners, and eateth with them.' , Christian Sci- 
ence does not go among the poor and the out- 
cast. It would not dare to do so. It dare 
not go into the tenement where men and 



MENTAL ASSASSINATION 235 

women on the poorest food are barely living; 
where misery and disease do their deadly and 
their daily work. It would not dare to tell 
the woman burning with the fever of starva- 
tion that she is not sick, that she has no fever 
and needs no food. It dare not go into the 
wretched hovel where a broken hearted mother 
weeps above the only treasure she had, and 
the only solace of her aching days — her little 
babe. It dare not go to her and say the child 
is not dead, that, in fact, she never had a 
child — she never had more than an ideal, and 
all she has to do is to recall her ideal senti- 
ment and she will be happy. 

Look at this man, crushed, bleeding, every 
bone in his body broken, unconscious, breath- 
ing out his last breath while his wife, clad in 
her thin dress, and with her pinched cheeks, 
moans and croons above him and calls aloud 
the name to which he will never more respond. 
Tell me a Christian Scientist dare go to the 
silent crowd standing awe-struck above the 
mass of bleeding flesh and broken bones and 
say with cheerful and vibrant voice that the 
man is not hurt, he is not bleeding, not a bone 
of him is broken, he has never fallen, there 
has been no accident. A Christian Scientist 
dare not do that in such a crowd. If the 
Christian Scientist did dare do it and were a 
man, he would be driven from the midst with 
blows and hootings; if it were a woman, they 
would mock her and insult her as a disgrace to 



236 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

that sex which ought to stand for all there is 
of love, of sympathy and tender help. 

Christian Science is not only a system of 
treason and betrayal, it is the most monumen- 
tal system ever invented to fool the people. 

It fools Christians who are more taken up 
with their body than with their soul; who 
know more about the word of man than the 
Word of God. 

It fools the unsaved because it substitutes 
the cure of the body for the salvation of the 
soul, and makes the deliverance of the body 
equivalent to the redemption of the soul. It 
fools the unsaved by assuring them that they 
are already saved, guaranteeing their security 
for a price current with the times. 

It fools people generally and mainly because 
it comes on the same basis as any other patent 
medicine, bringing in its testimonials as evi- 
dence of cure, appealing to that which is ever 
the most quick to respond — the hope of re- 
lief from physical ills. 

It fools the people by talking about religion, 
offering its book as materia medica and turn- 
ing its treatment into the exercise of a paid 
dispensary. 

Christian Science is a false pretence. 

It pretends to be spiritual and to deny the 
animal, to be occupied with the soul and not 
with the body, and then finds its most lucra- 
tive field in the realm of the animal and the 
cure of the body. It denies matter, and builds 



MENTAL ASSASSINATION 237 

churches of marble and granite. It denies 
matter, and prints its teachings in a material 
book and sells it for material dollars. It de- 
nies the existence of evil, and one of its most 
prominent teachers has been tried for error. 
It denies accident or possible danger, and yet 
its founder was removed from one house to 
another in a special car — one locomotive pre- 
ceding the train and another following to 
keep the track clear. It denies the changes 
of temperature, and its founder was lifted out 
of her carriage carefully wrapped in sealskin, 
so it is reported, and borne by stalwart arms 
into the building from which she has never 
since been seen to emerge alone. It denies 
death, and is responsible for the suggestion of 
mental assassination. 

Christian Science is a perversion of divine 
order. 

God has set up headship in man. He has 
set it up in the family, in government, and in 
the church. In the public assembly of the 
church he has forbidden a woman to teach or 
to speak. He has commanded her to keep 
silence. Christian Science is a repudiation of 
this order. Christian Science exhorts a 
woman to break the divine command concern- 
ing silence and teaching. Christian Science 
exists because a woman did not keep silence, 
and because she persisted in her rebellious de- 
termination to speak and to teach. Christian 
Science is distinctively a female system. It is 



238 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

the peculiar invention of a woman. Its teach- 
ers and healers are women. It has in it here 
and there a class of male representatives. 
A certain witty dean once said that society 
was divided into three classes, males, females 
and priests. Christian Science is divided 
into females and some men with female ten- 
dencies. The Devil fooled the world through 
the first woman, he is now trying to fool 
the world through another woman. He led 
it into sin through the first woman, he would 
lead it away from the remedy of sin through 
the other woman. 

Christian Science has one supreme aim. 
Its aim is to take away Jesus Christ as the 
alone saviour of men. It denies his actual 
birth, repudiates him as the Christ, makes him 
to be as full of errors as other mortals, re- 
jects the atonement of the cross, says he never 
died, never was buried and never rose, does 
not exalt his name above every name, refuses 
to bow to him as Lord and God, teaches that 
he does not sit upon the infinite throne, and 
that he is not in heaven at all. In short, it 
turns his body into an apparition, his blood 
to nothingness, his cross to a myth, his death 
to a fiction, his burial to a mockery, and him- 
self to a personality that never was real and 
no longer exists. 

Christian Science is a peril of perils. 
It is a peril to the health and security of a 
community. It is a peril to it because it re- 



MENTAL ASSASSINATION 239 

pudiates the system of medicine, the skill of 
the physician, throws the sick into the hands 
of charlatans, binds them up in the bonds of 
ignorance or fanaticism, makes them a disaster 
to themselves and channels of contagion and 
disease to others. 

It is a peril to Christianity. It is a peril, be- 
cause it puts on the robes of Christian pro- 
fession and hides its real antagonism under 
the plea of a higher and more spiritual con- 
cept. 

It is a peril to Christianity, because it re- 
peats the name of Christ, wards off suspicion 
and then, slowly but systematically, seeks to 
deny him. 

It is a peril to Christianity, because it quotes 
the Bible as its authority, professes to be its 
best interpreter and then, in the dark, seeks, 
little by little, to wrench it loose from the 
place of faith and absolute confidence. 

It is a peril to the Christian, because it 
talks of God and the Father and, step by 
step, leads the Christian to see that God is 
not a person, and Fatherhood but a name. 

It is a peril to the Christian, because while 
it talks to him of Christ, it leads him softly 
and insensibly away from Christ, or quite be- 
yond him, where he is his own saviour, his 
own Christ, and his own very God. 

It is a peril to the Christian, because it leads 
him eventually to deny the Lord who bought 
him, and thus brings him dangerously near 



240 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

that threshold where swift destruction falls 
on all who finally deny him. 

It is a peril to the unsaved, because it stupe- 
fies him on the edge of a precipice, closes his 
eyes to mortal danger, cries peace when there 
is no peace, and allows him to plunge head- 
long into a hopeless and unredeemable 
eternity. 

Christian Science is a sign of the times. 

It is a sign of that time of which our Lord 
forewarned when he said false teachers would 
come in his name and deceive many, doing 
many wonderful works and deceiving, if it 
were possible, the very elect; that time of 
which an apostle warns when he said the 
church would give heed to teachers who 
should turn them away from the truth and 
turn them to fables; that time of which an 
apostle warned when he said it would be nec- 
essary to contend earnestly for the faith once 
for all delivered to the saints ; that time when 
the professing church would listen to wander- 
ing spirits and doctrines of demons ; that time 
when spiritual apprehension would be so low 
that evil and false doctrine would find easy 
entrance to its midst; when the hope of the 
church, the Coming of the Lord, would be set 
aside, and the apostles who proclaimed it de- 
clared to be mistaken; in short, that time of 
which the Son of God specifically warned 
when he announced that the faith would dis- 
appear from the earth, and that its waning and 



MENTAL ASSASSINATION 241 

absence would be the threshold and witness 
of his Coming. 

Christian Science is a sign that the Coming 
of the Lord draweth nigh. 

It is a witness that the forces of heaven and 
the forces of hell are gathering for the battle 
of the great day of God Almighty ; that Satan 
is getting himself together for his last des- 
perate act; that in this bold and yet subtle at- 
tempt to counterfeit Christianity through 
Christian Science, he is paving the way to set 
up the man of sin, the son of perdition, he who 
is the final incarnation of himself; that all 
things are moving forward to that moment 
when the Son of God will secretly and sud- 
denly withdraw his Church of regenerated be- 
lievers from the world to himself and then, 
when the evil is fully headed up, will descend 
with the Church in outbreaking indignation 
and wrath upon Satan, his confederates, and 
all who have been seduced and entangled by 
him. 

Christian Science is a witness of all these 
things and is, therefore, a warning to every 
spiritual mind, a cry to every hearing ear. 

As one set for the defence of the Gospel and 
called upon to declare the whole counsel of 
God, I lift my voice and word against it. 

I warn that it is a pestilence, a fever, a 
miasma, a poison. It is Satan's masterpiece, 
Satan's disguise, and the sure destruction of 
every unwary soul who yields to it, 



242 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

In describing it and warning against it, 
every symbol of evil may be used, every meta- 
phor of iniquity mixed, all the collocation of 
terms known to human language exhausted, 
and then, when this has been done, not enough 
will have been said, nor emphasis sufficiently 
given, to paint it, picture it, denounce, and 
warn against it. 

I warn you to shun it. I exhort you to flee 
from it. Refuse to admit it into your house. 
If it comes in the name of friendship, do not 
receive it. Refuse absolutely to discuss it or 
hold controversy with it, any more than you 
would clasp hands with a leper or lie in his 
foul and fetid embrace. 

I call upon you to turn from this evil thing 
which smiles and speaks under its breath and, 
while it whispers, steals away that name which 
is above every name, the name which guaran- 
tees forgiveness of sins, opens the close shut 
grave, brings immortality to light, illumines 
the way to heaven and the throne of God, gives 
peace here and glory there; the name over 
which angels sing, before which angels con- 
fess, and at whose mention the whole universe 
must, finally, bend the knee— the name which 
is above every name, whether named in 
heaven, or in earth, or under the earth — the 
name of Jesus. 

Turn, I pray you, from that pestilential and 
shameful thing which would blot out the 
name, the person, the work, the present priestly 



MENTAL ASSASSINATION 243 

office, and the coming glory of our Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

Turn before the Lord himself descends in 
judgment on those who have not exalted his 
name above every name, and who have not 
owned him as Lord and God. 

Turn from this thing which, calling itself 
Christian Science, is neither scientific nor 
Christian and, beneath its indecent defiance of 
science and its treacherous betrayal of Christ, 
conceals the face of Antichrist and the form 
of Satan. 



Note. — Since the above was written, Mrs. Mary 
Baker Glover Eddy has died. A physician testifies 
that her death was due to pneumonia. Her appear- 
ance in death was that of an old woman. 

In face of this event — a question arises: 

Why did she die? 

She taught that there is no such thing as death. 
No one ever died. No one does die. Death is an 
error. To think oneself dead is to be deceived. 

Why then did she allow herself to be deceived? 

One of her representatives explains her death by 
saying that she passed her last days "in error." 

Think of it ! 

The head and founder of the Christian Science 
Church, the author of a book without error — ending 
her days in a state of error — and denying all for 
which she and her Church have stood. 

She denied old age and became a withered old 
woman. She denied disease and died of pneumonia. 
She repudiated death and became a lifeless corpse. 

What shall be said? 

What can be said but that the Devil who deceived 
her forsook her at the last. 

What can be said but that in the Great Hereafter, 
at the final judgment, she must meet that Christ 
whose actual death and resurrection she denied, and 
answer for the souls whom she entangled and led 
away into hopeless perdition through herSatanically 
inspired words. 



PRESENT DAY MIRACLES 

"And Jesus saith unto them, Take heed that 
no man deceive you. For many shall come in 
my name, saying I am Christ; and shall 
deceive many." Matthew, 24:4, 5. 

After He had finished His discourse in the 
temple, Jesus went forth. His disciples came 
to Him to show Him the great buildings 
of which the temple was composed. He said 
to them that not one stone should be left 
standing upon another. The disciples were 
astonished. What manner of man was this 
who, with a word, set aside the nation's 
pride and glory, and with calm assurance 
spoke of coming disaster. 

He passed on out of the city. They fol- 
lowed in silence. Together they crossed over 
the brook Kidron. They went with Him up 
the slopes of Olivet. On the mountain's brow 
He sat down. Unable longer to control their 
wonder, the disciples besought Him to tell 
them when the destruction of the temple 
should be, what should be the sign of His 
coming, and the end of the age. 

While they were questioning Him, He was 
gazing at the scene unrolling at His feet. 

He had a wondrous outlook. 

Jerusalem lay before Him under the sun- 



PRESENT DAY MIRACLES 245 

shine of a cloudless Eastern sky. The tem- 
ple, its walls like a piled up mass of carved 
and gleaming snow, its roof studded with 
golden spikes that no bird of passage might 
stop or stain it for an instant, crowned the 
sacred hill of Zion. Like a huge, uplifted 
rock in the midst of a swirling sea, it stood 
there, while wave after wave of splendid light 
swept over it in an amber flood, flecking the 
marble walls with shine and shade, illumin- 
ing them in the open with the pink of hidden 
flames, and in the darker courts to colder 
grays or deepening blues. On either side 
the houses of the town retreated as though 
the temple were too glorious, too awe-inspiring 
for common approach. Detached, uplifted, 
as though it would summon the very heaven 
to be its proper dome, it remained there like 
the concrete note of a silent song, a chiseled 
poem, a thing of beauty, a ceaseless joy to 
the eye of man to gaze upon. 

In the farther distance the mountains walled 
themselves round about the city like giant 
sentinels ordained of God. Tabor loomed up 
dark and solemn with the memory of the 
mystery-laden Transfiguration; and Hermon, 
exalted, majestic, sublime, lifted himself above 
his fellows, clothed with spotless white like 
the sacred robe of some more than mortal 
priest, and from his immaculate heights sent 
down the distillation of his crystal dew like 
a benediction to the holy place on Zion. 



246 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

On every side of the city the ground fell 
away in folds, as though a tossing sea had 
suddenly 'been turned to stone while yet its 
billows surged and rolled. Some of the rocks 
were painfully barren, and red, and brown, 
and livid, as though scorched by penal fires; 
the very air that swept over them seemed to 
have in it the breath of curses, such as those 
which sounded from the sides of Gerizim in 
days of old. Others of the rocks were cov- 
ered with countless wild flowers, massed to- 
gether in a riot of color. Everywhere the 
harsher features of the landscape were soft- 
ened by the dusky green of olives, the sober 
mourning of the cypress, and the kingly dig- 
nity of the palm. The valley of Gehenna from 
time to time sent up its heavy column of 
smoke, now and then, like a black veil, shut- 
ting out the beauty of the temple; here and 
there the fires of the burning offal glowed 
luridly — as though the dull gates of that fore- 
warned "hell fire" had opened on the glow- 
ing embers of the "damned" in woe. The hill- 
sides were filled with tents and impromptu 
constructions to hold and shelter the million 
numbered horde that had come from the utter- 
most parts of the earth to keep in judicial 
blindness that passover, whose typical beauty 
was to find its divine but tragic fulfilment 
in the sad-faced man of grief who sat there, 
and watched it all. 

And as He sat and watched it all, He saw 



PRESENT DAY MIRACLES 247 

far beyond the rim of the circling mountains, 
far beyond the end of this day so swiftly 
drawing to its close. The centuries opened 
their vista to his gaze. He saw Jerusalem 
surrounded by a trench and, surmounting the 
trench, a wattled fence, both trench and fence 
making a depth and heighth so great that 
those within the city might not go out, and 
none without might enter in. He saw the 
Mount of Scopus and all the surrounding hills 
clothed in scarlet, and this scarlet, the uni- 
form of Roman soldiers. He saw the bronzed 
eagles of Titus, and knew that Rome had 
come to destroy the guilty city. He beheld the 
starving thousands. He saw the indescribable 
scene of famine and horror within the be- 
leaguered town. Then the final assault, the 
capture, the holocaust of slain, the dead and 
the dying, the city leveled to the ground, the 
plowshare drawn over its foundations, and 
Zion become, as it had been foretold, a 
"ploughed field/' the nation carried away into 
captivity, and become wanderers throughout 
the earth. 

Nor did his vision rest there. He saw on 
down the age to its close. He saw kingdom 
rise against kingdom, and nation against na- 
tion. He heard the sound of war and rumors 
of war. He saw sunken-eyed famine and 
filthy-lipped pestilence walking cheek by jowl 
through the high places of the earth. He 
saw lawlessness and all the dark brood of 



248 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

anarchy, socialism, vice, open iniquity, waning 
faith and nameless sin, crowding into view. 
Nowhere did He get the vision of Gospel 
triumph, or a converted world. Not once 
did He obtain a glimpse of the purple and 
I the gold of millennial days during His ab- 
sence. On every side He saw increasing 
spiritual coldness and threatening woe. He 
saw coming, a time of tribulation, which He 
calls, "Tribulation, the great one," a tribula- 
tion such as the world had never known be- 
fore and never shall know again; a time of 
terror so great that if He, Himself, should 
not interfere no flesh could live. 

Foreseeing all this, He turns and warns His 
disciples in language so plain that none can 
miss the meaning. He warns not only of 
these things but of a peril more serious than 
all others combined — more serious because 
more subtle. He warns them against the 
peril of an apparent goodness and righteous- 
ness coming in His name; a goodness and 
righteousness which will seek to certify them- 
selves by wonderful works, by deeds of heal- 
ing, and by words that breathe and offer peace. 

The peril against which He warns is 
not devils coming with hoofs and horns; not 
sin outraging every sense of decency and 
propriety, but messengers, like angels of light, 
inviting to so-called ways of pleasantness and 
truth, wearing the name of Christ with such 
easy claim, using His speech, proclaiming His 



PRESENT DAY MIRACLES 249 

doctrine, and accomplishing such wonders in 
the realm of body and soul in His all-appealing 
name that, if it were possible, they should 
deceive the very elect. 

That peril is upon us now. 

At this present moment there are three sys- 
tems in the world which come in the name of 
Christ and, in His name, profess to do many 
wonderful works. 

Each system is a rank peril to truth and 
the souls of men. 

These three systems are: 

ROMANISM. 

EMMANUELISM. 

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

Consider Romanism: 

From the very beginning Rome has pro- 
fessed to work miracles. Again and again 
cases are reported in which by the appearance 
of the Blessed Virgin, a spot of land, a rock, 
a cave, a tree, or a fountain, has been invested 
with healing powers. Each year there is a 
pilgrimage of thousands to Lourdes. From 
time to time at the height of the season, so it is 
said, the Virgin appears there, troubles the 
waters of the fountain, and those who are 
privileged to enter the waters or catch a 
glimpse of the Virgin's face, are healed im- 
mediately. Relics of the true cross are to 
be found all over the world, preserved with 
jealous care in the cathedrals or churches of 
designated places. The bones of saints are 



250 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

carefully guarded, as well as the hair of mar- 
tyrs, and the blood of prophets. In the 
city of Naples there is said to take place 
from time to time, the miracle of the liquefac- 
tion of the blood of Jeremiah. By touch, or 
even sight, of these relics multitudes are re- 
ported to have been cured, the blind receiv- 
ing their sight, the lame throwing away their 
crutches and leaping for joy. Recently, in 
this city of New York, the more or less au- 
thentic bones of "Saint Anne" have been on 
exhibition in a Roman church. Crowds have 
visited the place and most startling cures are 
proclaimed. 

Emmanuelism is another system of pro- 
fessed healing. 

It actually takes the name of Christ. 

It is called, and everywhere known as, 
Emmanuelism. It takes its name from the 
Church (an Episcopal church in Boston) 
where the system finds its headquarters. It 
professes to cure disease by the operation of 
mind upon body. It claims that in operating 
in this fashion it is using the very means and 
methods of Christ himself. As in Romanism, 
some startling results are said to have taken 
place; nor is there any reason to doubt that 
many of these reports are true. 

Christian Science is still another professedly 
healing system. It not only comes in the 
name of Christ, but professes to be true and 
original Christianity with an added illumina- 



PRESENT DAY MIRACLES 251 

tion of truth. Its special object is not to 
cure the world of the fact of sin, but to cure 
men of the folly of believing in the fiction of 
sin; not to cure men of actual disease, but 
to demonstrate that disease does not exist; 
that there is neither sickness nor death. Its 
text book, like a patent medicine circular, 
contains a long list of the names of those 
who are ready to certify that they were once 
under the delusion of disease, imagined them- 
selves sick with every kind of ill from head- 
ache to cancer, were unhappy and wholly mis- 
erable, but now, thanks to Christian Science, 
have become perfectly sound and possess a 
quietness and peace that might well be the 
envy of many worried and tempest-tossed 
Christians. 

These wonders are being performed (so it 
is reported) daily; and there is every reason 
to expect they will be multiplied. This is an 
age of wonders, wonders in the sky, wonders 
in the earth, wonders in the realms of science 
and philosophy. Beyond doubt we shall yet 
see wonders in the realm of therapeutics be- 
yond anything now known, and increasingly 
performed by these three great systems, Ro- 
manism, Emmanuelism and Christian Science. 

While these systems have wrought in the 
name of Christ, none of the wonders per- 
formed by them have been produced either 
by the Spirit or the power of Christ. These 
systems are not of Christ. That they are not 



252 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

of Christ may be seen by bringing them into 
the light of the Word of God and testing 
them by it. 

Let Romanism be tested by a "thus saith 
the Lord/' 

Romanism is a compound of Judaism, 
Paganism and perverted Christianity. 

It is a corrupt Judaism ; that is to say, a 
counterfeit Judaism. 

It has taken its priesthood from Judaism. 
In doing this it has transgressed the law and 
the ordinance of God. The law of God has 
appointed priesthood on earth solely to the 
nation of Israel. In Israel it belongs to the 
tribe of Levi and the house of Aaron. The 
only people who have any national claim to 
priesthood at this hour are the Jewish people. 
In assuming the vocation of priesthood on 
earth the Romish Church sets aside the ordi- 
nance of God and robs the Jew of his pre- 
eminent right. 

Our Lord Jesus Christ was a Jew. He was 
not of the tribe of Levi. He was of the tribe 
of Judah. Priesthood on earth does not be- 
long to the tribe of Judah. It belongs ex- 
clusively to the tribe of Levi. Our Lord Jesus 
Christ as a Jew had no right to the office of 
priesthood on earth. If He were on earth to- 
day He would have no right to be a priest. In 
all reverence it may be said He could not be 
so, even if He wished it. The law is against 
it. Wherefore it is written: 



PRESENT DAY MIRACLES 253 

"If He [Jesus] were on earth, He should 
not be a priest, seeing that there are priests 
that offer gifts according to the law." — He- 
brews, 8 :4. 

When the Romanist claims to be a priest he 
takes an office from which the Son of God 
himself would be debarred. If then the Lord 
Jesus Christ could not be a priest on earth to- 
day, what right has any man in the pro- 
fessed Church of Christ to call himself a 
priest? To do so is to be presumptous and 
guilty of blaspheming the holy will of God. 

Our Lord Jesus Christ is a priest, the Great 
High Priest, but His priesthood is exercised 
only in Heaven; it is a priesthood not after 
the order of Aaron, but after the order of 
Melchizedec. The order of Melchizedec ex- 
isted before the coming in of the law, is above 
the law and, as it is exercised only in Heaven, 
not for Israel as Israel, but for the Church 
as such, it cannot violate or conflict with the 
law of priesthood in Israel. Thus it is written : 

"Whither [that is, in Heaven] the fore- 
runner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an 
high priest forever after the order of Mel- 
chizedec." — Hebrews, 6 :20. 

It is true, Peter speaks of a "holy priest- 
hood" among Christians, but it is a spiritual 
priesthood which belongs, not to one set of 
Christians, but to all — priests who are to offer 
up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by 
Jesus Christ, as it is written: 



254 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

"Ye also as lively (living) stones are built 
up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to 
offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God 
by Jesus Christ."— I. Peter, 2 :5. 

Or, again: 

"And hath made us kings and priests unto 
God and His Father." — Revelations, 1 :6. 

Priesthood ! Yes, but a spiritual priesthood- 
Priesthood! Certainly, but a priesthood to 
which the humblest Christian belongs. 

According to the Word of God then, Rome, 
in setting up a special class of priests and 
allowing them to lord it over the Church, has 
denied the common priesthood of all believers, 
minimized the exalted and special priesthood 
of Christ, and has been guilty of perverting the 
right words of the Lord. 

Rome is the continuation of Pagan Rome 
under the name of Christ. 

Rome is Paganism as well as Judaism. 

She has taken the images of pagan gods and 
goddesses, given them the names of Christian 
saints, and set them up in her church buildings, 
and there, as so many idols, permits them to be 
worshiped by the ignorant multitude. 

Before these images men and women bow 
the knee and bring their votive offerings just 
as the pagan sacrificed and worshiped before 
his gods. 

Rome has taken the feast days of Paganism 
and turned them into the feast days of the 
church. She has taken the wafer or cake of 



PRESENT DAY MIRACLES 255 

Paganism and transformed it into a "holy" 
offering. She has transformed the beautiful 
memorial ordinance of the Lord's Supper into 
a eucharistic and sacramental service. The 
priest speaks over the bread certain Latin 
phrases, immediately the bread becomes the 
living body of our Lord Jesus Christ; then 
the priest (with his back turned to the people 
and the mark of the cross upon it that those 
who observe him may know that the cross has 
been erected again) proceeds to offer up the 
Son of God, and put Him to death as a fresh 
sacrifice, for the sins of men. 

But what says the Scripture about the offer- 
ing of Christ ? 

It says : 

"We are sanctified through the offering of 
the body of Jesus Christ once for all." — He- 
brews, 10:10. 

And again: 

"By one offering He hath perfected forever 
them that are sanctified." — Hebrews, 10:14. 

The Word of God says one offering once 
for all. Rome says a fresh offering of Christ 
every Sunday, and as many times oftener as 
the worshiper may be willing to pay for it. 

In doing all this Rome not only perverts 
the Word of God, but, in the language of Holy 
Scripture, she leads her deluded followers to 
"Crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, 
and put Him to an open shame." — He- 
brews, 6 :6. 



256 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

Rome teaches that the sinner is saved by 
good works as well as the death of Christ. 
Scripture says: 

"By grace are ye saved through faith ; and 
that not of yourselves ; it is the gift of God : 

"Not of works, lest any man should 
boast." — Ephesians, 2 :9-10. 

Rome teaches that at death the soul of the 
Christian enters purgatory. In this intermedi- 
ate state it is subject to the agency of purify- 
ing fires ; here the "saint" suffers for his sins 
in proportion to their degree. His deliverance 
from this fiery furnace is to be brought about 
by the intercession of the priest; the inter- 
cessory prayers of the priest will be efficacious 
and the patient liberated in proportion as a 
satisfactory price is paid into the church treas- 
ury for them. 

The Word of God teaches that the moment 
a Christian dies he is "Absent from the body 
and present with the Lord." When the Chris- 
tian dies he does not enter torment, but rest, 
as it is written : 

"Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord 
from henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit, that 
they may rest from their labors." — Revela- 
tion, 14:13. 

The apostle Paul declares that at death the 
(believer "departs to be with Christ"; and he 
affirms that the intermediate state, the state 
between death and resurrection, is an advance 



PRESENT DAY MIRACLES 257 

over the present life, it is "far better." — Philip- 
pians, 1 :23. 

To the thief on the cross the Son of God 
said: 

"To-day shalt thou be with me in para- 
dise." — Luke, 23:43. (Paradise! not Purga- 
tory.) 

Rome teaches that the Christian cannot go 
directly to Christ as his great high priest. 
He must have some one who will intercede 
for him with Christ ; some one who is holy and 
without sin. As no one is holy, or without 
sin on earth; as only those can be holy and 
without sin who are finally in Heaven, then 
Rome turns to the saints who have been ex- 
alted and enthroned in Heaven and constitutes 
them as the intercessors with Christ. Among 
these intermediate intercessors the Blessed 
Virgin, "ever virgin," has the pre-eminent 
place. Mary is enthroned in Heaven by the 
side of her exalted Son, and those who would 
gain the ear of the Son must arouse the in- 
terest of the Mother. 

This question of the Virgin's intercession 
was settled by the Lord Jesus before He died. 
He settled it at the wedding feast in Cana of 
Galilee. His mother came to Him on behalf 
of the people gathered there and told her Son 
that they had no wine. His answer was a 
tremendous and far-reaching interrogatory. 
He said: 



258 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

"Woman, what have I to do with thee?" — 
John, 2:4. 

He did not repudiate her as His mother, 
nor yet as a woman, He testified simply that 
she had no pre-eminent place of intercession 
before Him in matters which called for the 
exercise of divine powers. 

He himself has said: 

"No man cometh unto the Father, but by 
Me."— John, 14:6. 

And lest it should be said, "True, no man 
cometh unto the Father but by Him, yet in 
order to come to Him at all it must be by the 
intercession of some one with Christ who will 
make Christ willing to intercede with the 
Father," He himself settles it in one striking, 
undebatable sentence: 

"Him that cometh to ME I will in no wise 
cast out." — John, 6 :47. 

Rome has falsified! There is nothing be- 
tween the seeking soul or the worshiping 
saint and the great high priest. There is no 
need of any saint, no matter how holy, to 
introduce us to the "Man in the Glory," the 
"Advocate" on high. On the contrary, we 
are exhorted to "Come boldly unto a throne of 
grace, that we may obtain mercy and find 
grace to help in time of need." — Hebrews, 
4:16. We are told that we may have "bold- 
ness to enter the holiest (Heaven)* by the 
blood of Jesus. By a new and living way 
ivhich He has consecrated (opened) for us, 



PRESENT DAY MIRACLES 259 

through the vail, that is to say, his flesh"; 
that we have a "high priest over the house of 
God," and are therefore exhorted to "draw 
near in full assurance of faith." — Hebrews, 
10: 21-22. 

Rome takes away the Scripture from the 
people. Our Lord Jesus Christ says, "Search 
the Scriptures * * * they are they which 
testify of me." — John, 5 :39. 

The apostle Paul commends the Bereans as 
being more noble than those at Thessalonica, 
because they "searched the Scriptures daily." 
—Acts, 17:11. 

Rome declares that the Church is founded 
upon Peter as the rock. Our Lord Jesus 
Christ declares that He himself (as the 
deathless Son of the living God and, there- 
fore, the Son who would triumph over death, 
rise from the grave, and become immortal) 
would be the abiding foundation on which the 
souls of men might build. Paul says, "That 
Rock was Christ." — I. Corinthians, 10:4. 
Peter testifies that Christ is the Rock. "A 
rock of offence, even to them which stumble 
at the word." — I. Peter, 2:8. Rock in Scrip- 
ture is the symbol, not of man, but God, as 
it is written, "My soul waiteth upon God * * * 
he only is my rock and my salvation." — 
Psalms, 62:1-2. 

Rome teaches that Christ gave to Peter the 
keys of the Church. It is not true. He gave 
him the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, "J 



260 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of 
heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on 
earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatso- 
ever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed 
in Heaven."— Matthew, 16:19. 

The kingdom of Heaven and the Church 
are not the same thing. 

All who are in the Church are in the king- 
dom of Heaven. 

All who are in the kingdom of Heaven are 
not, necessarily, in the Church. 

The Church is the BODY of Christ. 

The kingdom of Heaven, in this age, is the 
outward profession of Christ. 

The Church has in it only those who have 
been made partakers of the divine nature and 
are indwelt by the Holy Ghost. 

The kingdom of Heaven has in it both good 
and bad; those, of course, who are regener- 
ated, being in the Church, and those who 
are not regenerated, being simply professed 
members of the Church. 

The Church is not the kingdom of Heaven, 
but the body of Christ in the kingdom. 

There are no keys to the Church. 

The keys are only for the kingdom. 

The keys of the kingdom were two in num- 
ber. Those keys were, The Gospel and Bap- 
tism. 

Peter used them on two occasions, and two 
only : on the day of Pentecost and at the house 
of Cornelius. At Pentecost he opened the 



PRESENT DAY MIRACLES 261 

kingdom to the Jews; at the house of Cor- 
nelius to the Gentiles. 

The authority to bind and loose was not 
given to Peter exclusively. It was after- 
ward given to all the disciples as representing 
in principle the whole Church. It was not 
given in this fashion till after He had risen 
from the dead and communicated to them the 
Holy Ghost; for, the Church did not come 
into existence until that definite moment. 

This is what He says to the Church antici- 
patively through the disciples : 

"Whosoever sins ye remit, they are re- 
mitted unto them; and whosoever sins ye re- 
tain, they are retained. ,, — John, 20:23. 

He is making the Church the depositary of 
doctrine and authorizing her through her min- 
istry, whether in pulpit or pew, to announce, 
on the one hand, to all who should believe 
the testimony concerning Him, the loosing 
of their sins, and on the other, the bind- 
ing or the damnation of sin to all who 
should reject their testimony; for He had 
said, "He that receiveth you, receiveth Me." — 
Matthew, 10:40. And, consequently, those 
who should reject the messengers of Christ 
would be counted as rejecting Him. In other 
words, He is announcing to the Church that 
He authorizes her to proclaim forgiveness of 
sins in His name and sealed and assured con- 
demnation to those who reject Him. 

In such binding and loosing all Christians, 



262 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

in measure, participate. From this it is evi- 
dent that Peter's keys went no farther than 
opening the profession of Christ in this stage 
to Jew and Gentile. His power to loose and 
bind was only in common with the rest of the 
apostles. 

Kome exalts Peter into primacy as bishop 
of Rome. The Son of God gives no ground 
for such primacy. Rome exalts Peter into 
primacy. 

There is not a single line in Scripture to 
indicate that he ever was inside the city of 
Rome. 

The only apostle who is recorded in Scrip- 
ture as having lived in Rome is the apostle 
Paul. 

Peter never wrote a letter to the church at 
Rome. 

Paul wrote the epistle to the Romans. Paul 
is the only apostle who ever did write a letter 
to the church at Rome. 

Peter never wrote a letter to any church. He 
wrote two letters, but these were not to local 
assemblies. He wrote them as general let- 
ters to Hebrew Christians wherever "scat- 
tered." 

Paul wrote fourteen epistles. Nine of these 
letters were to the churches. 

To Paul and not to Peter was given the 
revelation from heaven that the church is the 
body of Christ. To Paul alone was given the 



PRESENT DAY MIRACLES 263 

revelation concerning the mystery of the 
church. 

Peter was not the apostle of the church at 
all. Peter was the apostle of the Circum- 
cision. 

Paul was the apostle of the Gentiles; and 
he tells us why : "That I should preach among 
the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." 
Ephesians, 3:8; that he might make known 
unto them "that the Gentiles should be fellow 
heirs, and of the same body." — Ephesians, 3 :6. 
He was the apostle of the Gentiles that he 
might bring to them the knowledge of the 
church, this great secret that had been hid- 
den from the ages. It is Paul, then, and not 
Peter who has to do with the church. Not to 
Peter, but to Paul alone was given, "the care 
of all the churches."II. Corinthians. 11:28. 

If the care of all the churches exalts the 
care-taker into the place of the supreme bishop 
or overseer of the church then Paul, indeed, 
and not Peter, was the supreme bishop of 
the church. 

Rome claims temporal sovereignty. Our 
Lord declares that his kingdom is not of this 
world; his actual kingdom has not yet been 
set up. 

Rome makes the Pope the vicar of Christ 
on earth. Our Lord Jesus Christ announces 
that the Holy Ghost is the vicar, his vice- 
gerent. 

He says : 



264 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

"The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, 
whom the Father will send in my name." 
—John, 14:26. 

The claim of Rome and the office of the 
Pope are the seals of blasphemy against the 
Holy Ghost. 

On great feast days the Pope is carried into 
St. Peter's on the shoulders of men, placed 
on the high altar of that wonderful temple, and 
there, practically, worshiped as "The Holy 
Father. ,, 

In this scene there is a foreshadowing of 
that moment of which Paul speaks, when Anti- 
christ, the "man of sin," shall sit, "in the 
temple of God, shewing himself that he is 
God." — II. Thessalonians, 2 :4. 

From all this it must be evident that Rome 
is "apostate" Christianity. 

She is an apostate church. She is a false 
church of Christ and, therefore, a false Christ. 

In the very nature of the case such a sys- 
tem cannot be owned of the Holy Spirit, and 
cannot exercise the power of Christ. 

The miracles, therefore, professedly per- 
formed by Rome are not the miracles of 
Christ. 

Let Emmanuelism be tested by the word of 
God. 

The healings wrought by it are not of Christ. 

They are not, because, 

1. Emmanuelism claims that its cures are 
produced by the subject himself exercising 



PRESENT DAY MIRACLES 265 

his own power of mind ; or, by yielding to the 
natural power of mind in another. 

2. Because by its own text book, "Religion 
and Medicine," Emmanuelism confesses that 
Jesus Christ, while to a certain degree an ex- 
pert in psycho-therapy; while able to operate 
through, and upon, the sub-conscious mind; 
while pure and good, and all that, was limited. 
He was limited in his intelligence. He believed 
in demons, in evil siprits, in demoniacal pos- 
sessions and was, largely, bound by the ignor- 
ance and the superstition of the times. Fur- 
thermore, Emmanuelism teaches, the disciples 
of Christ were unlettered, uneducated men, 
under the impressions of the age in which 
they lived. The reports which they give of 
the teachings and the doings of Christ are 
colored by their superstition, their ignorance, 
and their exaggerated partisanship as his fol- 
lowers. Their testimony cannot be accepted 
as final. Only those portions can really be 
tolerated which have received the recognition 
of modern scholarship. 

In short, Emmanuelism teaches that Christ 
was limited, and his disciples unreliable as 
biographers. 

A limited Christ and an unreliable New 
Testament ! 

There you have Emmanuelism with the vail 
off. 

Will any one pretend that a religion, or a 
work, which holds such an attitude to Christ, 



266 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

is honored by his Spirit and his power? Nay! 
though it stood under the dome of the richest 
cathedral ever built, clothed with sanctity and, 
in the name of Christ, doing deeds that were 
very miracles, even the miracle of the dead 
raised to life again, it would not be the work 
of Christ, nor of the true ministers of Christ. 

All that has been said of Romanism and 
Emmanuelism is to be said with a millionfold 
greater emphasis of Christian Science. 

Christian Science comes in the name of 
Christ and denies everything for which Christ 
stands. 

It denies that he was actually born of a 
virgin. The virgin did not give birth to a 
body, she gave birth simply to an idea. 

It denies that Christ cast out demons, healed 
the sick, or raised the dead. 

He never raised Lazarus from the dead. 
Lazarus never was dead. He only thought 
so. Jesus went to the grave to arouse him 
out of his false and foolish idea that he was 
dead. The whole story of his resurrection 
is the story of a monumental deception. All 
that concourse at the grave, the theatrical roll- 
ing away of the stone, and the loud cry to 
Lazarus to come forth, were nothing better 
than mere pretence. There was no death and 
there was no actual resurrection. So far as 
Christian Science treats the matter, the Son 
of God acted no better than an Eastern fakir 



PRESENT DAY MIRACLES 267 

before the eyes of a befooled and wondering 
crowd. 

Christian Science denies that the blood of 
Christ was of any more avail when shed on 
the cross than when flowing through his veins 
in daily life. 

Christian Science denies that Jesus shed 
his blood at all. 

Christian Science denies that Jesus Christ 
died. All the time the people thought he was 
dead he was alive and hiding in the tomb. 
Jesus and Christ are distinct. Jesus was the 
apparent material man. Christ was, and is, 
the eternal principle of truth. At the so- 
called ascension, Jesus disappeared forever 
and Christ ascended. Christ did not ascend 
as a person to heaven, Christ is nothing more 
than a spiritual principle. There is no ac- 
tual heaven. Heaven is a condition of the 
mind, and when the principle of truth has as- 
cended into the place of dominion over the 
individual, that is the ascension to heaven. 
Jesus does not exist. He never has existed, 
except in the imagination of men. 

Christian Science denies the Second Com- 
ing of Christ as a personal fact. Christian 
Science claims that the discovery made by 
Mrs. Eddy was, and is, the only Second Com- 
ing ; it was the second coming of truth. Chris- 
tian Science denies judgment to come, future 
punishment, and hell as the final abode of 
the lost. No one is lost. No one needs a 



268 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

saviour ; for there is no sin. No matter how 
sinful and wicked men may appear, the mo- 
ment they recognize that sin does not exist, 
that they have never sinned and never can, 
they are free, pure and holy; free, pure, and 
holy as they always have been, but, this time, 
to their own awakened and happy conscious- 
ness of it. 

Christian Science denies that the Bible i9 
the infallible Word of God. It says that it is 
fallible, full of errors, myths and fables. The 
only book that is absolutely free from error, 
that never makes a mistake, and is perfect 
in every line, is the book written by Mrs. 
Eddy herself. 

Christian Science is a crime! 

It is a crime against morality. It denies 
the existence of sin. 

It is a crime against society. It exalts wife- 
hood above motherhood, and advocates di- 
vorce. It advocates divorce in the nature of 
the case. It does this because the author of 
this religion — Mrs. Eddy — has herself been 
married and divorced. The stream cannot 
rise higher than the fountain. 

Christian Science does not believe in mar- 
riage as the highest and best thing ; if pushed 
to the ultimate of its principles it would abol- 
ish marriage altogether and open the sluice 
gate of unspeakable disaster to society. 

Christian Science is a crime against the 
health of a community. It denies the fact of 



PRESENT DAY MIRACLES 269 

sickness, and declares that doctors should, 
with all medical remedies, be abolished. 

It is a crime against intellect. It denies 
the creation and the existence of matter. All 
things that can be seen, touched, heard, or felt, 
are non-existent — they exist only in the im- 
agination. 

In short, Christian Science is a system 
which denies science, is itself a travesty on 
science, a mockery of logic, and a vender of 
words without knowledge. 

Christian Science is a guilty thing, a de- 
ceiver and an Antichrist. 

Will any one with a sane or an honest mind 
claim that a system which exalts a wife to 
live above marriage ; which suggests that 
children may be brought into :' Id solely 

by mental operation; denies sin. sickness and 
death ; denies the existence of matter, anni- 
hilates Jesus, destroys the personality of 
Christ, and rejects the Bible as a mass of old 
-5' fables, setting its own book as an au- 
thority above it; will any one, looking into it 
and seeing it as it is, have the hardihood to 
that the healings and cures and wonders 
wrought by such a system, have been wrought 
by Christ and his Spirit? 

It is impossible ! 

Neither Christ nor his Spirit has any re- 
lation to such a system. There can be no 
relation between Christ Jesus and the system 



270 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

which denies him and bankrupts all final faith 
in him. 

None of the present-day miracles, there- 
fore, wrought by Romanism, Emmanuelism 
and Christian Science, are of the Spirit and 
power of Christ. 

By whom then, or by what power have these 
miracles been wrought? I answer, there is a 
personage in the universe who has the power 
to produce all these things. 

From the third chapter of Genesis to the 
close of the Bible, he is recorded there as 
the tireless adversary of God and man. So 
great is his dignity that even the archangel 
Michael could not bring a railing accusation 
against him. He is shown to be as versatile 
as powerful. He reveals himself, now as a 
serpent and then, as an angel of light. He 
is called the prince of the powers of the air. 
Scripture testifies that he can, at times, send 
the winds, the tempest and the lightnings. He 
has the power of disease. He caused Job 
to be smitten from head to foot with a loath- 
some sickness. Our Lord Jesus Christ says 
that he bound a certain woman with an in- 
firmity for eighteen years. Scripture assures 
us that he has the power of death. 

This great personage is the Devil and 
Satan. 

I am not addressing, and I have no contro- 
versy with, those who do not believe the 
Bible. With that educated and cultured class 



PRESENT DAY MIRACLES 271 

of ignorance which has no more knowledge 
of the Bible than an inert stone has of a 
quivering star or a burning sun; with that 
self-satisfied culture which turns away from 
the Bible with the same indifference that a 
blind man would turn away from a master- 
piece of Michael Angelo, I have neither in- 
clination nor time to waste words. I am writ- 
ing for those who accept the Bible as the in- 
fallible Word of God. To such I say: You 
are now face to face with the fact to which the 
Bible gives unfaltering and unmistakable tes- 
timony, the fact of a person who has power 
over the atmosphere; who may cloud it or 
clear it; who can, when he is permitted, make 
it a channel of disease and destruction; who 
has power over the body and over the mind; 
who can use the minds of men to suit his own 
will, fooling them, blinding them, and leading 
them captive with the deception that they 
are acting in their own proper right and 
freedom. 

Here is a power that can inflict disease 
or withhold it. A power that can kill or keep 
back, to a degree, the shaft of death. Here 
is a being who seems like a God; a being 
who, indeed, in Scripture, is called the "God 
of this World." Here is a personage who 
could produce the psychological movements of 
the hour, and who could, if he so willed, bring 
about through his agents, the so-called cures 
or miracles. And because these systems at 



272 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

bottom are a denial of Christ, are in spirit 
and sum antichrist, and Antichrist is the final 
and climacteric manifestation of the Devil, 
then it may be said, with unhesitating con- 
fidence, that these cures and wonders wrought 
by these specialized systems, are wrought by 
none other than the Devil himself. 

The Son of God teaches plainly that these 
wonders will be increasingly a peril to the 
world. They will deceive those who are not 
the elect of God. They would deceive even 
the very elect of God if it were not for his 
holding power. They have deceived multi- 
tudes. They are deceiving them to-day. Thou- 
sands of a certain class in Romanism, another 
and more mental class in Emmanuelism, and 
still another class in Christian Science who 
are not ignorant and uneducated, but who are 
more sentimental and more sensuous than in- 
tellectual, a vast number of ailing men and 
women, and a large number who are governed 
purely by imagination, will be carried away 
and, if they abide under the delusions, will 
prove that they are not the elect of God. 

More and more Romanism will appeal to 
the ecclesiastical side of the human mind. Em- 
manuelism will appeal to the psychological 
side. More and more Christian Science will 
appeal to the female area of mind and to 
the female characteristic of mind in some 
classes of men. And because the peril will 
increase and become intense, the Son of God 



PRESENT DAY MIRACLES 273 

from his seat on the brow of Olivet warn- 
ingly says: 

"Behold, I have told you before." 

These deceiving wonders performed in the 
name of Christ, as they increase in emphasis, 
bear witness that the Coming of the Lord 
draweth nigh. 

He himself has said so. 

He has said that when all these things be- 
gin to come to pass, we, as believers, may 
look up and know that our redemption draweth 
nigh ; that the Lord is even at the door. 

It is a witness that this age, like the river 
that at last reaches the brink of the cataract, 
is about to sweep over and plunge to its fall. 

These very signs say to us in the loudest 
possible speech, 

THE LORD IS COMING. 

The Coming of the Lord means the call- 
ing up into glory of all who own him as 
Saviour and Lord. 

It means, after that, the immediate and 
eternal damnation of all those who have been 
deceived and hoodwinked by these false sys- 
tems and who have not recovered themselves 
from the snare of the Devil. 

Wherefore I charge you and beseech you, 
you who read these lines, if you have in any 
way been entangled in these deceptions, to 
flee out of them and take wholesome and per- 
fect shelter under the blood of the atoning 
Lamb of God; cast yourself in absolute de- 



274 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

pendence upon the grace, the mercy, and the 
keeping power of a covenant God, an un- 
failing Christ, and an abiding Holy Spirit. 
Make the risen and glorified Son of God your 
high tower, your fortress, and your sure de- 
fence. 

His solemn words of warning for all ears 
are these: 

"For there shall arise false Christs, and 
false prophets, and shall show great signs and 
wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, 
they shall deceive the very elect. 

"BEHOLD, I HAVE TOLD YOU BE- 
FORE." 



SOCIALISM 



There is no stint or poverty in nature. Pro- 
vision seems to have been made for all. The 
birds of the air, the beasts of the field, the fish 
of the sea, and the most infinitesimal degree 
of animal and insect life appear to find ample 
sustenance and sufficient area for the exercise 
or enjoyment of their functions. Logically, it 
should be expected that man, the head of crea- 
tion in this world, would find, individually, the 
same plethora in respect to himself. Looking 
at the world as a dwelling place for man, there 
is every reason to expect that one would be 
able to enjoy as much of the wealth and 
bounty of the earth as another. There is 
room enough for every one to have a home 
and large domain. There is wood in the for- 
ests, coal in the mines, gold, silver and tin, in 
the earth's veins, brass that may be dug from 
the hills. The lakes and rivers teem with fish, 
and the sea sends its bromides with health 
salutations to all. The wheat and corn, fruit 
and vegetables, are ready to respond with the 
same largess to the effort of each; flowers 
bloom in their beauty till even the desert is 
made glad. The sky is over all with the same 
blue by day, and the same shining stars by 
night. The sun the rain and the dew. are 



276 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

continually at work, with no respect to per- 
sons. There is air enough for all to breathe. 
In short, provision and equipment enough for 
each individual to stand on an equality of 
possession and hopefulness with the other. 

This might well be expected from the ful- 
ness of nature. 

It requires only the most casual observation 
to see that such is not the case — that the re- 
verse is true. 

Practically, to-day, the world is, as it has al- 
ways been, in the hands of the few. It is the 
few who own the land and its resources. The 
few who control the product of mother earth, 
and benefit of the value of human labor. The 
few, relatively speaking, are rich, and may 
live as kings live, without the care of to-mor- 
row's expense, without fear of yesterday's 
debt. A multitude live without actual pov- 
erty, but within lines that are circumscribed, 
and where it is necessary, always, to keep the 
sentinel of economy on the walls and submit 
to the law of limitation even for legitimate 
demands. There is the vaster multitude who 
eke out existence. They are the toilers, the 
hard workers in the chain gang of labor, as 
much under the whiplash of daily service as 
a slave beneath the blows of a master. Their 
life consists in realizing the things they can- 
not have. They live close to the earth, are 
hewers of wood and drawers of water, have 
little chance to see the sky, because of the 



SOCIALISM 277 

close attention they must pay to the ground 
on which they walk, and, in the final analysis, 
are little better than machines wound up by 
the inexorable hand of necessity, set going for 
a certain number of minutes each day, and 
repeating the movement till something in the 
machinery gives way, and they are thrown 
aside into the dump heap of the grave as mere 
scrap material whose only value may be to fer- 
tilize the dust of which they soon become a 
part. 

A spirit of protest is rising against this con- 
dition. 

Men are asking themselves persistent ques- 
tions: Is there such a thing as the privilege 
of birth? Have some men a better right to 
the earth's endowments than others? Is it of 
the law and nature of things that multitudes 
of human beings should be no better than 
dumb driven cattle, and not so well cared for, 
suffering a misery that brutes do not know ? 

This spirit has been organized in flesh and 
blood, and is making itself materially felt in 
every quarter of the earth. . It is an organized 
revolt of the mass against the domination of 
the class. It is an organized accusation against 
the injustice of poverty and the narrowness of 
life. It is a revolt and an equipped deter- 
mination to break down and completely over- 
throw the partitions erected by man in the 
domain of nature. 

This protest calls itself — Socialism. 



278 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

Socialism finds large encouragement from 
the past. Within a hundred years men have 
broken away from the restraints of an artificial 
society. Privilege of birth has been denied 
and destroyed in the blood of those who 
claimed it. The divine right of kings has been 
rejected and the absolute monarch made to 
know his limit. The wage earner has increased 
his wage and minimized his hours of toil. The 
laborer has made himself a political quantity 
to be reckoned with. Socialism has become a 
force. It is multiplying with great rapidity. 
Its voice has grown loud enough to be heard 
in parliaments and halls of legislation. Armies 
and navies are infected by it. The brother- 
hood of man has become a regnant idea. The 
barriers of nationality are broken down by it. 
The distinction of flags is repudiated and one 
flag alone, the red flag (the symbol of the 
common blood of man) is upheld and owned 
as the flag of socialism. 

The concepts and methods of socialism are 
varied. The aim is one. That aim is to de- 
stroy the present order of society and erect 
upon its ruins a new, in which it shall be a law 
that a man is a man, and that each man has 
all the right of the other man. 

Whatever the divergent lines along which 
they move, the outcome of socialism is the 
same. The eventuation is identical — it is the 
exaltation of the community. In spite of the 
rallying cry of individualism, the ultimate is 



SOCIALISM 279 

communism. There is and must be the com- 
mon property, the common fund, and the gen- 
eral distribution. Sooner or later the organ- 
ized effort of socialism must lead to a tyranny 
— either the tyranny of the community, or the 
individual — who, perforce, must control the 
community. 

The varied propositions which grow out of 
the socialistic principle are both logical and 
suggestive. 

By some it is proposed to abolish marriage. 
The woman has the same right of her body 
as the man. Man and woman shall be equally 
free. Love is not to be bound by any law 
save that of its own. Where love wishes to 
go it shall be free to go. As there is no limit 
in the exercise of love among the brute crea- 
tion, there should be none among men and 
women. A woman may have as many hus- 
bands, and a man as many wives, as they shall 
elect. Love is to be a communal quantity as 
well as the product of the fields. Children 
shall not belong to any special man nor woman. 
The state is to be the father and mother of 
the child. The child is to own and recognize 
the state as such. The children are to be con- 
sidered as the common produce of the com- 
munity, and the community is to obtain from 
them the reciprocal benefit of the protection 
it gives — in the increased asset of labor. 

The theory of socialism is that each shall 
help the other; that aggregate toil means in- 



280 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

dividual comfort. It is a community, a part- 
nership, in which each one contributes to, and 
receives from, the other, in the general sum. 
It is to be a unity of life powers working for 
the common good, instead of each individual 
going off at a tangent and coming together 
only that they may grapple with and destroy 
one another — a destruction that is the legiti- 
mate corrolary of selfishness — the rule of the 
inequality of man. 

Socialism in its attempt to build a new so- 
ciety fails to recognize that human life is in- 
dividualized by its inequality. One mountain 
is known from another because it is higher or 
lower, or has some special deposit of rock or 
strata. One country is characterized by rivers, 
another by lakes, another by forests, and still 
another by deserts. The product of one land 
is different from another. Examination of 
the earth's construction will show inequalities ; 
and the very unity of the earth depends upon 
the fact that some mountains are higher than 
others, some rivers deeper, and some lands 
rich in the precious metals which others do not 
have. The same inequality is to be found in 
human life. Its individuality is its x inequality, 
its inequality is its individuality. Some men 
have one endowment, some another. Some 
men have capacity to work individually, some 
men have power to make the multitude work, 
using them in their several abilities like so many 
hands and feet for their own individuality. 



SOCIALISM 281 

In the very nature of the case, sooner 01 
later, socialism must meet this ordained and 
constitutional inequality in individual life. 
Sooner or later, there must arise in a socialistic 
community the extra quality and characteristic 
of a few or one ; and this quality or character- 
istic becoming dominant whether in one direc- 
tion or another, and, given time for develop- 
ment, must be the destruction of the actual 
basis on which socialism seeks to build. 

Socialism fails to recognize the nature in 
man. That nature manifests itself in self-ex- 
altation, self-interest; and where self-interest 
is at work, there must be, sooner or later, the 
clash of paramount claim. This clash can 
be hindered only by a combined or individual 
force, and thus, in the nature of the case, the 
communal interest becomes such only in name ; 
it is an interest in the hands of the few or 
the one, and is distributed according to the 
will of the final determining power. Socialism 
carries in itself the seeds of its own destruc- 
tion. It is conceived in revolt and born in 
lawlessness, and lawlessness must be its final 
offspring. The lawlessness of socialism will 
exercise itself within certain limits and then, 
at last, in obedience to its own inherency, must 
revolt against final limitation. 

Socialism may be described under various 
titles. There is a scientific and a radical so- 
cialism. There is yet another which is the 



282 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

latest and is thoroughly startling — it is known 
as Christian Socialism. 

This new cult of socialism might well be 
called "Ministerial" socialism/' for it is among 
Christian ministers that it finds its expression 
and power. 

Two elements enter into and form this new 
socialism. On the one hand actual unbelief in 
respect to the doctrines and the faith of the 
church. There are those in the ministerial 
ranks who say we are not so certain about the 
supernatural side of the Bible. We are not so 
sure of its integrity as a revelation from God. 
We do not really know anything about the 
future. All we actually know is the present. 
The need of the hour is the practical. Let us 
join hands with the things that are seen. Let 
us take hold of the natural man and build him 
up. Let us establish a right kind of society 
here. Instead of taking up the time to talk 
about the robe of divine righteousness, let us 
go to work and see that men have good coats 
for their backs. Instead of getting men ready 
for heaven, let us get them ready for earth. 
Instead of talking about a holy city on high, 
let us make a sanitary city here below. In- 
stead of seeking to defend the character of 
God, let us make good the character of man. 
Instead of racking our brains about spiritual 
food, let us look to it that we have good nat- 
ural food. In short, instead of spending our 
forces upon a possible eternity, let us meet 



SOCIALISM 283 

the demands of actual time ; let us build a so- 
ciety in which the brotherhood of man shall 
become a realized fact, and where, in the king- 
dom of the brotherhood of man, each human 
life shall be sustained by every other life. 

These teachers declare that the church has 
a right to exist only as it becomes the instru- 
ment for such a society ; that the church which 
is not working to better human existence here, 
the church which is not seeking to bring about 
the days of heaven upon earth, has no business 
to talk about a heaven to come — has no busi- 
ness to be at all. 

There is another class of Christian ministers 
who believe in the Bible, but accept its doc- 
trines only on general lines. They modify 
and interpret the doctrines to suit their con- 
cept. To them Jesus Christ is the great so- 
cialist. He came into the world, so they say, 
to bring about a new condition of things in it. 
He came to rebuke the unnatural order of so- 
ciety. He came to be a reformer, a reorgan- 
izer of society. His relations, it is pointed 
out, were not with the class but with the mass. 
He was born in poverty and wore its badge. 
He went among the people and made himself 
one with them. His teachings were a constant 
arraignment of society, his one effort, to estab- 
lish the brotherhood of man, enforce the rule 
of unselfishness and love. The church, so they 
teach, is the continuation of Christ's concept, 
and, in exact proportion as it follows the ex- 



284 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

ample of Christ, the church will be the ex- 
ponent and advocate of socialism; that true 
socialism is Christianity, true Christianity is 
socialism. 

In face of these assertions it is well to raise 
the question: Was Jesus Christ a socialist? 
Was he a reformer? 

I answer in the negative. He was neither 
a socialist nor a reformer. 

If he were a reformer, why did he not lift 
up his voice in protest and accusation against 
governmental corruption ? 

The government under which he was born 
and under which he continued to live was the 
government of imperial Rome. Rome, while 
the most magnificent in strength, the most 
limitless in power, and, while giving benefits 
and civic blessings in some respects never 
since equalled, was, nevertheless, the most cor- 
rupt of governments. It was made up of bribe 
givers and bribe takers and fattened itself off 
the spoils of the people. But, so far from 
protesting against its corruption, its iniquity 
and vice, he took a Roman coin bearing the 
effigy of Caesar and bade men go pay their 
taxes to sustain this government, saying that 
they should render unto Caesar the things that 
are Caesar's. At another time he bade one of 
his disciples to cast a net into the sea, and 
when he had caught a fish therein, finding a 
piece of silver in its mouth, commanded him 
to go pay taxes for himself and the disciple. 



SOCIALISM 285 

If he were a reformer, why did he not protest 
against war? War, according to socialism, is 
the instrument of the few by which, at the 
cost of the lives of the many, they maintain 
their power. 

He had a great opportunity to protest 
against war. 

In Rome a soldier went into the army, not 
for three or five years, but for twelve or fif- 
teen and even twenty years. War was the 
trade of emperors and kings, war was the 
business of life. Each day Jesus could hear 
the tramp of the legions. He knew they were 
going to or returning from the fields of 
slaughter. 

He never raised his voice against war. On 
the contrary, he said he did not come into the 
world to bring peace, but a sword. He said 
that his presence in this world and the things 
he taught would set a man against his brother, 
divide families, and be the hand of war itself. 
Not only did he refrain from any protest 
against war, he went so far as to announce that 
during the whole time of his absence from 
this world there would be wars and rumors of 
wars, nation should rise against nation, and 
kingdom against kingdom. 

If he were a reformer, why did he not lift 
up his voice against slavery? At that very 
hour Rome had one hundred and twenty mil- 
lions of subjects. Of that number sixty mil- 
lions were slaves, the lives of many of them 



286 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

not worth the price of an inferior dog. Slaves 
everywhere, bending under the rod of the 
master. Not once, not in a single instance, did 
he say a word against slavery. On the con- 
trary, he recognized the distinction between 
master and servant. He said, when a servant 
does his work does the master thank him. 
"I trow not." 

If a reformer, why did he not take up the 
question of the saloon? The saloon was at 
every corner. Everywhere wine and strong 
drink flowed like water, and men were sodden 
with it. Not by a single word did he warn 
men against this disaster or lift up his voice in 
protest. Instead of the reputation of a re- 
former with the multitude, the people cried 
out that he was himself "a wine bibber and a 
glutton." 

If he were a socialist, why did he not take 
up the issue of labor and wages? 

He saw the rich living off the unpaid toil 
of the poor. He saw those who were paid 
receiving a stipend, toiling from morning to 
night, and barely able to keep body and soul 
together. And yet he raised no word of pro- 
test. He never inveighed against the rich, de- 
nounced their corporate trusts, their illegal 
combinations, their predatory encroachments, 
and demand that the hours of labor be short- 
ened, the remuneration be increased and legiti- 
mate wages paid. 

If he were a socialist, why did he not lift 



SOCIALISM 287 

up his voice against poverty, testifying that 
property as then possessed was a crime and 
wealth a robbery? Why did he not denounce 
poverty as the product of the privileged few 
and, while accusing the rich of their unlawful 
power, appeal to the poor to claim their right 
of equal share, and thus banish the sin and 
shame of poverty ? 

Why did he not do this ? 

He did not do it ! 

He had an immense opportunity. A girl 
who loved him took an alabaster box full of 
costly ointment, poured it on his head and feet 
till the whole room was filled with the fra- 
grance of her devotion. Some one suggested 
that this was a great waste ; that the ointment 
might have been conserved, sold for three hun- 
dred pence and given to the poor. The sug- 
gestion came from Judas — the thief and the 
final betrayer of the Son of God. Judas, the 
betrayer of Christ, is the only Socialist among 
professed Christians of whom the New Testa- 
ment gives a record. It was the Lord's op- 
portunity to take up the issue presented, rebuke 
the waste and advocate the claims of the poor. 

He did nothing of the kind. 

He rebuked the socialist who proposed it. 
He not only rebuked him, he declared himself 
satisfied with the waste, because the woman, 
he said, had wrought a good work upon him ; 
she had discerned his person and work, and 
had anointed him against the day of his bury- 



288 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

ing. He went farther, and declared that so 
long as he should be away from the world 
poverty and the poor should continue. Not 
by one word did he suggest that the church 
which he was to found should take up the 
issue of poverty and seek to abolish it from 
among the sons of men. Not once did he inti- 
mate that his teachings followed out through 
the coming centuries would cause the elimina- 
tion of poverty, the decrease of the poor. In- 
stead, he said that so long as the church should 
continue in the world poverty would remain, 
the poor should continue. It was the plain 
denial that he expected the church to work, 
testify, or legislate against poverty. It was 
the plain denial that he was a socialist — a plain 
denial that the church would be the advocate 
of socialism. 

He gave an emphasis to the continuation 
of poverty by the facts of his own life. 

He was born in a stable. He wore a robe 
that was the badge of poverty — the seamless 
robe. There were times when he had diffi- 
culty in finding food, his disciples plucking 
ears of corn from the wayside. He had no 
certain dwelling place. He said foxes had 
holes and the birds of the air had nests, but 
he did not have where to lay his head. When 
he died he was wound in offered linen and 
buried in a borrowed grave. 

He illustrated the fact of poverty by his life 
and proclaimed its continuance by his words. 



SOCIALISM 289 

And why talk about him as an example for 
socialistic endeavor? 

His example cannot be followed in any wise. 

He saw the hungry multitude, his heart was 
touched with compassion and he would feed 
them. But it must be remembered that this 
same multitude were without bread and food, 
not because they were a lot of poverty-stricken 
beggars on the edge of starvation, but a crowd, 
like any other crowd, away from the base of 
supplies. He would feed them because they 
had followed him and were in need of nour- 
ishment. He takes a few loaves and blesses 
them, then breaks them, gives them to the 
disciples, and the disciples hand them to the 
people till all are satisfied and twelve baskets 
full of fragments are left over. What would 
such a method of making bread go round do 
to-day if it were possible? It would destroy 
the bakery business and cause a revolt in trade. 
But who can perform the miracle ? Why, then, 
let it be repeated, talk about following his 
example ? 

How did he pay his taxes ? As already sug- 
gested, by bidding a disciple go out and fish till 
he found a lost piece of silver in a fish's mouth. 
If that example were to be followed we would 
have the whole business community going 
a-fishing to find silver in a chance fish's mouth. 

It is said that he went about doing good. 
And this is the socialist idea of Christ. It is 



290 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

the emphasis, so they say, of the great doctrine 
of altruism. 

But how did he do good ? 

According to the record, in every single case, 
by a miracle — a miracle puts his "good" in 
a category beyond that of example. 

Test him by the demands of practical life 
and it will be found that he was the most im- 
practicable man who ever lived. 

Hear what he says about going to law: If 
a man sue you for your coat, give him your 
cloak also. If he demands your everyday coat, 
let him have your overcoat as well. 

He tells those who are smitten on one cheek, 
instead of landing a blow on the offender, to 
turn and let him smite the other cheek. Surely, 
that would be a death blow to socialism — it 
would put an end to mob rule, to picric acid 
and dynamite, the civilizing and renovating 
instrumentalities of socialism. 

Does he visit schools, colleges, institutions 
of learning, the schools of the prophets, and 
deliver discourses on the practical side of life? 
Does he teach economy, the laying up of treas- 
ure, the getting ready for a ripe old age and 
the rainy day? Does he advocate the savings 
bank and the deposit of values against the 
demands of time ? 

He talks about saving money. He advocates 
the putting of it in bank — but where, I pray 
you? 

He says we are to lay up our treasure in 



SOCIALISM 29 1 

heaven, and not on earth at all. Here rust will 
accumulate upon hoarded treasure, or thieves 
may break through and steal; money laid up 
in heaven is alone secure. 

Listen to him intently and you will find that 
he is not talking about this age but that which 
is to come, not about the present but the fu- 
ture. He is discussing, not what we shall have 
here, but what we shall have in the there. 

The outlook of Jesus Christ was not on this 
world. 

There is one tremendous fact which proves 
it. 

That fact is his continued absence from this 
world for two thousand years. 

If he had been anxious to change society, 
why did he not stay here ? He who could turn 
water into wine and raise the dead could have 
remained untouched by death, unwithered by 
age, if he had so willed. So, remaining, he 
could have wrought all changes he desired. 

If he were opposed to sickness and disease 
why did he not stay here and go about the 
world healing the sick ? He required no drugs, 
no medicine, no surgeon's knife; he could 
speak and it would have been done. 

If he were opposed to death and the dark- 
ness of the grave, why did he not stay and 
raise the dead ? Why did he limit his ministry 
to three years and confine his operations to 
the insignificant land of Palestine? Why did 
he not stay and keep pace with the years ? "It 



292 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

would have been as easy for him to have 
walked upon the wide oceans as upon the nar- 
rower sea of Galilee. If storms had met him 
on the way, his "peace, be still," would have 
hushed their noise, his word of command have 
held the waves in leash. He could have gone 
from shore to shore where the dead were lying, 
whether in bed, on bier, or in the Lazarus 
grave; he could have spoken, and the dead 
would have risen to life in our midst, as well 
as there in Bethany. O, if he were against 
all this sorrow and anguish and defeat and 
excuseless misery and mystery of death — why 
did he not stay and with his mighty power, 
his mightier love, overcome death and bring 
in the constancy of life and the vigor of health 
—Why not? 

If he were interested in the progress of civ- 
ilization, why did he not stay and guaranty 
it? He could have settled the questions of 
geology and astronomy. He could have de- 
fined electricity and set forth the laws of its 
application. Instead of allowing men to dig 
wearily in the earth, or scan with blinded eyes 
the far-off stars, or waste their limited mo- 
ments in the laboratory, he could have spoken 
just the word of truth and science. He who 
could multiply bread and fishes, raise the dead 
and still the storm, and do all this without the 
need of tools, he could have told men how to 
live, how to build, how to sow and how to 
reap, how to reach life's worth and fulness. 



SOCIALISM 293 

If he had been interested in the develop- 
ment of this age along the highway of its 
noblest possibilities, why did he not stay and 
teach and show ? 

He could have stayed. 

He said so. 

He said no man could take his life from 
him unless he so willed. He had power to 
lay it down and he had power to take it again. 
With such power he could have bulwarked 
himself against any approach of death. He 
could have stayed here if he had so willed. 

Why did he not stay and banish war, slavery, 
drunkenness, crime, iniquity and vice of every 
sort ? He cast out demons — why could he not 
cast out such devils as these ? Say not a word 
further about his ante-mortem life and possi- 
bilities of power; take him at his own words 
after he rose from the dead, when he said that 
all power was given him in heaven and on 
earth. Be it so. If he were a socialist, if he 
desired a perfect society among men as well 
as among angels, if he were here to blaze the 
way of evolution by precept and principle, why 
did he not call a halt on his upward path to 
glory, stay and, even then, exercise his claimed 
omnipotence to produce the ideal condition 
which eloquent men, in his name, say he came 
into the world to produce? 

The answer is clear enough — it is inevitable 
— his outlook was not on this present world. 

That his outlook was not on this present 



294 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

world is shown by the purpose of his absence. 

Why did Jesus go away after he had mas- 
tered death and when the plenitude of his 
powers was upon him? His disciples pro- 
tested at the very mention of his going, were 
broken-hearted at the thought of it. 

He tells them the reason of his purposed 
going. He was going into heaven, there to 
prepare a place for them. He was not going 
to some distant part of the earth ; he was going 
to die; he was going to rise from the dead; 
and then, in the might of his resurrection 
strength, he would ascend to heaven, and in 
that place, beyond measure of distance, he 
would prepare a dwelling place for them; 
heaven and not earth was to be the abode. And 
let it be remembered he is not holding out 
heaven to the individual disciple, but to the 
corporate body, offering heaven to them as a 
final abode when the church should be com- 
plete. 

All this settles the relation of the church to 
the present age. 

The church as such is here in the process of 
formation as the body of Christ. Its process 
condition, and the objective of its completion, 
bear witness that it is not here as a perma- 
nent but a temporary institution. The church 
is in the world as a pilgrim and a stranger. 
A pilgrim is one who is away from home and 
on his way home. So surely as Christ, the 
head, has ascended to heaven, the church, as 



SOCIALISM 295 

his body, must ascend there as well. So surely 
as Christ is the bridegroom and dwells in 
heaven, the church, which is his bride, must 
be presented to him and dwell in heaven also. 
Heaven, and not the earth, is the ultimate of 
a complete and triumphant church. 

That there may be no mistake about it, the 
Lord himself says to his disciples, after an- 
nouncing to them that he is going away into 
heaven to prepare a place for them : 

"And if I go and prepare a place for you, I 
will come again, and receive you unto myself ; 
that where I am there ye may be also." — John 
14:3. 

It is a simple and direct promise to come 
and take the church out of the world. It is 
not a promise to the individual that in some 
circumstantial or providential way at death he 
will come in spirit to the dying believer. There 
is no such paucity of thought as that in his 
promise. It is a promise to come himself, not 
to the individual disciple, but to the collective 
body, to the whole body of his disciples, and 
take them clean and clear, and at the same 
time, the whole of them, out of the earth. 

It is the express declaration that there is a 
term to the presence of the church on the 
earth ; that the Lord is coming to remove the 
church from the earth to heaven. 

The outlook of the church, then, is not on 
this age, but on one to come. The church is 
not here as a factor of society, as a reorgan- 



296 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

izer, as a reformer, but as one who passes 
through the world, even as her Lord passed. 
A tree, primarily, is not in the earth for the 
sake of the soil in which it grows ; it is in the 
soil for its own sake. It is in that particular 
spot of earth that it may draw out of it the 
material for its own upbuilding, and at a cer- 
tain stage of growth is not infrequently trans- 
planted to another location. The church is not 
here, primarily, for the world, but for its own 
sake, that it may take of the world according 
to the ordained purpose of God and build into 
itself that membership foreseen in covenant 
intention. That it will be transplanted to the 
garden of the Lord is certified in his assur- 
ance to come and take it to himself. 

That the Lord did not expect the church to 
better the world, or that the world would grow 
better, in the sense of spirituality, during his 
absence, is manifest by his own statement, by 
his express teaching. 

In his discourse upon the Mount of Olives 
he looks down the possible centuries and de- 
clares that in that coming time there will be 
wars and conflict of nations to the end; that 
human selfishness will be the enthroned power ; 
that lawlessness will be multiplied and the love 
of divine and spiritual things wax cold; that 
the fires of passion will up-leap and burn and 
the flame of faith and Christian hope grow 
dim. He predicts the character of the world's 
civilization in the closing hours of this age. 



SOCIALISM 297 

He says it will be as it was in the days of 
Noah. We know what it was in the days of 
Noah. They were eating and drinking, they 
were marrying and giving in marriage. It 
was a time of arrant materialism, a time when 
the appetites and passions of the natural man 
were let loose without stint. We know that 
it was a time when the earth was filled with 
violence, and although the Gospel was 
preached through Noah by the very spirit of 
Christ for one hundred and twenty years prior 
to the flood, the hearers were few and the tes- 
timony of grace went begging. We know that 
it was a time when the thoughts, the imagi- 
nations, and the intents of the heart were 
evil, and evil continually. 

The Son of God says the end of this age 
shall be like that. 

There was a civilization and culture in that 
age as well as this. When Cain went out from 
the presence of God he founded a city. There 
were workers in iron and brass; there were 
builders of organs and players on instruments 
of music. Life had its force and its fashions. 
Side by side with the culture was the crime 
and the shame. The climax was an impossible 
human society in spite of the faithful testimony 
of God. The Son of God says the end of this 
age will be as it was in the days of Sodom. 
It shall be a time in which righteous men, like 
Lot, shall vex themselves unceasingly, and 



298 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

dash themselves hopelessly against the increas- 
ing on-rush of godlessness and sin. 

What the Lord teaches he inspires his apos- 
tles to teach. 

Paul testifies that so far from the church 
producing a spiritual change in the social con- 
dition, the professing church itself will be 
subject to the moulding influence and power 
of the world, will depart largely from the 
faith once for all delivered to the saints, and 
that the condition in society will be so antag- 
onistic to the true teaching of the Word of 
God that he calls it by the definite title of 
"Perilous times." 

The apostle James writes as though he had 
dipped his pen in twentieth century ink. He 
declares that wealth will be accumulated in 
the hands of the few; that the wage of the 
laborer will be held back ; that class and mass 
will dash against each other; that the rust 
on the wealth of the rich shall eat their flesh 
as it were fire; that they have heaped their 
treasure for the last times; that the injustice 
of the hour, and that in spite of the supposedly 
moulding influence of the church, is so great 
that the Lord, as the very judge, is repre- 
sented as standing at the door. Christian so- 
cialism is an effort to change the predicted 
course of this age; an effort to Christianize 
men by bettering their physical and social 
state. 

In holding out such hopes it is setting up 



SOCIALISM 299 

a false light in the world's moral and spiritual 
darkness. It is giving a pledge that cannot 
be redeemed. It is denying the whole tenor 
of the earthly life of Christ. It is shutting its 
eyes, not only to the divinely predicted course 
of things, but to the logical necessity for the 
course ; to the fact that without a distinct, new 
creation, human society must, in the very na- 
ture of the case, in exact proportion to the 
exaltation of its own resources and rule of 
its own wisdom, diverge more and more from 
the plane of divine and spiritual things. This 
world, in its present age, is like a sinking ship. 
Every attempt of socialism, Christian or other- 
wise, to better the age socially, is the folly and 
the futility of those who would go on board 
a sinking ship and, while the waves were rush- 
ing in and the ship slowly but surely sinking, 
spend their force in clearing out the state- 
rooms and decorating the panels. It is the 
folly of a man who spends his force in seek- 
ing to bridge a bridgeless gulf. 

Neither Christ nor Christianity are in the 
world to reorganize the society of the natural 
man, elevate him, or appeal to his own re- 
sources. What, then, was the mission of Christ 
and, consequently, of the church ? 

I answer — He came into the world not to 
live, but to die. 

He came to die that he might establish a 
basis on which a holy God could be just and 
yet justify a guilty sinner. He came that 



300 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

he might redeem man from the judgment of 
death and the power of sin. He came that 
he might recreate him as a new humanity, 
make him a God-enthroned being, and give 
him an immortal and glorious body which 
should shine forth at last in the beauty and 
splendor of his own resurrection body. 

This is the meaning of his presence in yon- 
der heaven to-day. 

He is there as the new head of the race. 
He is there to communicate from the head- 
quarters of omnipotence, by the instrumental- 
ity of the Spirit and the Word, his own very 
life and nature; fashioning those who own 
and confess him into his spiritual image here 
and now, that he may clothe them with his 
outward image by and by. 

In the light of his office work at the throne 
of God, we may read the work into which the 
church is called during his absence. 

The church is here in his name to testify 
to the hopelessness of the old Adamic nature. 
The church is here as the concrete denial of 
the doctrine of evolution. She is here to say 
that as the incarnation of Christ was not the 
taking up of the old Adam humanity into 
union with God, but the creation of a new and 
distinct humanity in which God was enthroned, 
so membership in the church of Christ is not 
by any fancied elongation of the old nature 
into a spiritual environment. The church is here 
to testify in language that cannot be misun- 



SOCIALISM 301 

derstood that the natural man receiveth not 
the things of God ; that he cannot understand 
them; that they are pure foolishness to him. 
The church is here to testify that when you 
can gather grapes of thorns and figs of this- 
tles ; when you can bring spirit out of flesh, or 
make corruption the virgin mother of holiness, 
then can human nature, either by the aid of 
the church or its own evolution, build a society 
whose foundation will be eternal and whose 
relationships shall have in them the accent 
of continual and unbroken peace. Not before. 
The church is here to testify that the only so- 
ciety that can abide on the earth and turn 
it into the paradise of God is a society in which 
God is the enthroned and supreme power, and 
that this enthronement can come only by a 
distinct, new genesis, a genesis as real and 
actual as the old ; that this new genesis comes 
from above and not from below; that except 
a man be quickened from above and be made 
a partaker of the divine nature, he cannot 
enter into the true kingdom of the brotherhood 
of man and God. 

The church is here to enunciate and re- 
emphasize the dogma that Christ risen from 
the dead is the new head of the race, and that 
alone through him can come the new and spir- 
itual life. The church is here to point the 
world back to the cross, proclaiming that in 
that cross Christ became a sin-offering for the 
world at large, and a substitute, in particular, 



302 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

for every sinner who by faith should claim 
him as his personal sacrifice for sin. The 
work of the church is to exhort men to offer 
up Christ, by faith, to God as their all-sufficient 
propitiation and perfect substitute. The work 
of the church is to point the world to the risen 
Christ, not the Christ of Bethlehem, not the 
Christ of mortal flesh, but the Christ of the 
empty tomb, the Christ who shines in an im- 
mortal body, in a triumphant humanity, on 
the ultimate throne ; point to him and bid them 
own him as the recreator of their humanity, as 
the source of the new, the spiritual, and the 
endless life, the life that will enable man to 
reign, and rule, and rejoice, in a society which 
shall be none other than the kingdom of the 
brotherhood of the sons of God. 

The church is not to go out and raise the 
false, delusive hope that man can be repaired 
like a broken piece of furniture and made 
good as new, or that he is like a closed tel- 
escope, only needing to be opened out that he 
may get the true and delivering view of God. 
The church is not to sing the Lorelei song 
that the world is growing better because, for- 
sooth, we have rapid transit, chemical analysis 
and progressive aviation ; sing the Lorelei song 
that identifies Christianity and civilization, that 
makes civilization the choral note of Christian- 
ity, while every moment the world, like the 
deluded rower in his fated skiff, is drawing 
nearer and nearer to the swirling whirlpool 



SOCIALISM 303 

of destruction — the judgment climax of the 
age. The church is to point the world to the 
only hope — the Coming of the second and per- 
fect man, the true king and saviour of the 
earth. 

And this is the true hope. And this is to 
be the final solution. When he comes whose 
right it is to reign, he will give to every man, 
wrought of God in him, his true place. Then 
every man shall sit beneath his vine and fig 
tree, none daring to molest or make afraid. 
The knowledge of the Lord shall cover the 
earth as waters the face of the deep, war shall 
cease, peace shall reign, and the perfect so- 
ciety, made up of a new and God-enthroned 
humanity, shall come to its own at last. 

The law of life in that new and perfect so- 
ciety will be, not the law of self-exaltation, but 
the law and will of God established in the soul. 
Then the true personalism of man will be re- 
vealed. Then men will say, it is not I, but 
Christ. I no longer live, but Christ liveth in 
me. Then man will find that his true center 
is God. In God he will live and move and 
have his being, and live and have that being 
intelligently. The nexus between God and 
man, the guaranty of the perfect coming life 
and ultimate society is — Christ. The universe 
in its final term is Christo-centric. A society 
that is not centered in Christ must be in the 
flotsam and the jetsam of continual antag- 
onism with itself and the nature of things. In 



304 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

Christ is the alone secret of the unity of life 
and the fulfillment of the highest social rela- 
tions. Only when humanity is related to 
Christ as the body is to the head will the indi- 
vidualism of humanity function to the glory of 
the head and the perfect expression of human- 
ity's distinctive membership. 

The work of the church, then, is to get men 
into Christ — get Christ into men; begin to 
build up the foundation for the perfect society 
by bringing the recreative process of Christ 
to bear upon individual life, presenting each 
man, as Paul says, perfect — in Christ. 

This work will not change the general so- 
ciety of the world in this age of the natural 
man. God himself for three years and a half 
walked in visible personality in it. He walked 
in it, talked in it, taught and wrought in it, 
in the personality and individuality of his eter- 
nal Son; but human society, under obedience 
to that law which exalts self and not God, 
slew him through the vulnerability of his hu- 
manity, in the tragic death of the cross. 

The church has been in the world for two 
thousand years. 

When it stood nearest to the fountain head ; 
when the very breath of Pentecost was still 
warm in its veins, and the voice of him whose 
Word upholdeth all things, was still vibrating 
in their ears; in spite of the regenesis of hu- 
man lives and the illumination from divinity, 
the world society went on its way, changing 



SOCIALISM 305 

here and there its forms, uttering new cries, 
but remaining at heart the same old society, 
the society that sets up man and not God. 

The Spirit of God has been at work in the 
world specifically for two thousand years, 
transforming the sons of men, illumining the 
darkened souls, filling the moral landscape with 
bursts of divine glory; and yet it is not the 
spiritual but the natural man who rules the 
world; the very socialism of the day, even 
when presented in the name of Christ, however 
smoothly it talks, means always, in the final 
analysis, the dignity of the natural man; it 
means that in the natural man are to be found 
the capital, the assets, and all the resources 
for the highest and most perfect manhood; 
and alas, alas, it is to this natural man that 
men who call themselves the ambassadors of 
the Christ and the apostles of a perfect social- 
ism are appealing for the realization of their 
dreams. In spite of that cross flinging its 
bloody shadow over human nature and echoing 
in the cry of agony from the lips of the for- 
saken Son of God, the old judgment of the 
flood, that the end of all flesh, both good and 
bad, had come before God, that in the natural 
man there is nothing on which God the Al- 
mighty builds his hopes, there are those who 
call themselves the ministers of the gospel of 
the grace of God, who fail to see that their 
very administration is a witness that the pres- 
ence and the work of the church in this world 



306 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

have not been able to change the old concepts, 
the old pride, and the lingering accents of the 
devil's lie, "Ye shall be as gods." 

The church when true to its functions will 
always be rejected by the natural man, and 
the Spirit of God be resisted. The natural 
man will never accept the thesis of the church 
that he is without spiritual resource, or that 
he cannot, in his own energies, build a tower 
whose top shall reach to heaven and lift him 
above any coming flood. That the church, 
and the Spirit of God in the church, have held 
the flesh in check, is the testimony of the Son 
of God himself. He teaches that the church 
in this age is as salt and light. As salt, the 
church preserves the world from total corrup- 
tion. As light, it shines in the persistent dark- 
ness of the natural man. The men and women 
in whom there is the deposit of the divine life, 
in whom the Christ nature is dominant, and 
who are guided by the Spirit, restrain evil, 
act in the resistance of righteousness to un- 
righteousness ; but, with all this, it is only a 
portion of humanity that is pervaded by the 
salt, only a portion that is indwelt by the light. 

Either the purpose of God has failed in 
the fact of this fractionalism, or there has 
been a misconception of the purpose of God 
in the age. The purpose of God in this age 
is, not to change the world, but to call out of 
it a people for the name of Christ, who shall 
be united to him in spirit and nature, and that 



SOCIALISM 307 

by faith. God's purpose is not the evolution 
of the old race, but the creation of a new and 
spiritual race in Christ. Every true Christian 
is a Son of God in embryo ; his full birth and 
deliverance is to be at the Coming of Christ, 
as it is written: 

"Beloved, now are we the sons of God; it 
doth not yet appear [that is, it is not yet openly 
revealed] what we shall be: but we know 
that, when he shall appear, we shall be like 
him : for we shall see him as he is." — I. John 
3: 2. 

That such a body should be a modifying 
blessing as it passes across the face of the 
world ought to go without saying. A body 
of American tourists may pass through the 
old, established society of Europe; they may 
be a blessing in transitu, but the passage, how- 
ever much it may modify certain forms of 
things here and there and give new concepts 
of individuals, does not change the essential 
condition of the society itself, neither does the 
church. 

The work of the minister of Christ is to 
enter into partnership with this ordained 
scheme of God, be a co-worker with him in 
the constitution and building up of the new 
and spiritual race. That is his highest func- 
tion, that is the rare dignity into which he is 
called. To go down to the level of the natural 
life, seek to ameliorate it, change it, better it, 
lift it up, inspire it with hope in itself, or at-* 



308 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

tempt to make it the final factor in the world's 
work, is to fall short of the divine commis- 
sion, is to miss it altogether and prove false 
to the exalted trust of God. 

This failure on the part of the ministry of 
Christ to front bravely, fairly and squarely, 
the fact that God has set the natural man 
aside, that there is no hope in himself, that 
his only hope is in the regenerating mercy of 
God through faith in Jesus Christ ; this holding 
back of a large part of the professing church 
from the work of fitting men for eternity 
rather than time; this endeavor on the part 
of the church to placate the demands of mod- 
ernism and be governed by the witchery of 
evolution; the willingness to make the Word 
of God secondary to the word of man concern- 
ing man; the immense effort now making on 
the part of the natural man to find a solution 
to all the difficulties of life in himself ; the in- 
creased determination to turn the back on 
any other world than this ; the insistent camp- 
ing of the race between the cradle and the 
grave, as though this narrow parenthesis of 
time were the sum total of the human outlook ; 
this setting aside of any revelation from God 
except that of natural intuition — all these 
things are distinctive signs of the times. 

They are signs, on the one hand, that the 
church is coming to the end of its usefulness 
as a witness for divine and unearthly things ; 
that it is turning away from the commission 









SOCIALISM 309 

of Christ and accepting the commission of 
man ; that it is losing its nexus with the Spirit 
and that it is walking by sight and not by 
faith; on the other hand, the activities of the 
flesh, the pride of human learning and human 
achievement, the putting of science in the 
place of God, are witnesses that the platform 
is being built for the exaltation of man as su- 
preme, for the final repudiation of a "non- 
resident" God. 

Socialism, as expressing the latest effort of 
the natural man to go oui; like Cain from the 
presence of God and build a city, a society and 
a civilization in defiance of divine order, divine 
law, divine revelation and divine warning, is 
a witness that the world, like the ship now on 
the breakers, requires only one more wave to 
dash it to pieces. It is the sign that the world 
needs the hand and touch of its true and com- 
ing king. 

It is a warning that the Coming of the Lord 
draweth nigh. 



EMMANUEL1SM 

"And Jesus said, Somebody has touched me, 
for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me." — 
Luke 8: 46. 

He said this, because a woman who had 
spent all her living on physicians and was 
nothing bettered, only worse, had come behind 
him in the crowd, touched the hem of his 
garment, and was immediately healed. 

She was cured by contact with the Son of 
God. 

She got, as he said, virtue and power out 
of him. 

This curative process went on wherever 
he came. People were cured by touching him ; 
he cured people by touching them. He cured 
them by a word, and always when they exer- 
cised the condition of faith. 

There is a movement in our midst to-day 
which comes in the name of Christ, and 
claims, as a system, to perform some, if not 
all, of the cures he wrought. It takes one 
of the very titles of Christ. He is called Em- 
manuel. This system calls itself, or is called, 

THE EMMANUEL MOVEMENT. 

It takes its name from the fact that its 
original manifestation, and its real head- 



EMMANUELISM 311 

quarters, is the Emmanuel Church of Boston. 

The definition of Emmanuelism (as it may 
be styled) is given in its own official text- 
book, "Religion and Medicine," published by 
Moffat, Yard & Co., Boston, and written by 
Drs. Worcester, MacComb and Cariat. 

According to this text-book, Emmanuelism 
belongs to the category of metaphysical, or 
mind healing. It is known, scientifically, as 
Psychotherapy. It is built upon the principle 
that mind dominates the body; that the body 
reacts upon the mind. 

Body and mind, together, constitute the in- 
dividual; but the individual has two distinct 
minds, the ordinary working or surface mind 
and, underneath that, another and superior 
mind. The upper mind is always more or 
less in a state of flotsam and jetsam, accord- 
ing to circumstances or conditions. The sec- 
ond mind is known as the "sub-conscious." 
The sub-conscious mind is the higher nature 
in man. It has in it all the necessary ele- 
ments of purity and truth. It has clear moral 
vision. It has all the endowment which the 
upper mind lacks. It is, practically, the nexus 
between man and nature, man and the univer- 
sal spirit, man and the God of nature. 

This sub-conscious mind has in it all the 
resources and powers by which it can save 
man physically and morally. It can save man 
physically, that is, curatively, by its relation 
to the chemic forces of the body. That mind 



312 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

operates in relation to these forces is demon- 
strated every day. Fear causes the cheek to 
pale; shame brings the flush; sorrow causes 
a flow of tears; hope makes the pulses beat; 
good and evil desires may set the blood on 
fire. A man can be under such a strain of 
emotion that the sweat will roll in great beaded 
drops from his forehead, and his whole body 
be as though it were bathed in water. Now, 
these conditions are due to the effect of the 
mind on the circulatory system, on the com- 
bining and disarranging of the chemical 
forces of the body. 

All these results may be produced, more 
or less, by the surface mind. But the 
sub-conscious mind, when allowed to work, 
can produce all these operations of the 
natural forces of the body in largest form. 
Take an illustration of the superiority of the 
sub-conscious mind: You are trying to re- 
call a name. You exercise your mind and all 
your known ingenuity to recall it. In spite 
of all you can do you cannot remember that 
name. Then you give it up in despair and quit 
thinking about. Suddenly, the name comes 
back to you. 

How did it happen ? 

The answer is, the sub-conscious mind has 
a retentive memory. The moment it was al- 
lowed to work, it brought forward the name 
from the recess where it had been stored. 

In order that the sub-conscious mind may 



EMMANUELISM 313 

freely operate, two methods are possible — 
auto-suggestion and extra-suggestion. 

Auto-suggestion signifies self-suggestion. It 
is self suggesting to self, to the inner and 
deeper self. 

A man may be full of worry and melan- 
cholia. Let him suggest to himself that he 
is happy; that he has courage. The sub-con- 
scious mind will respond and fill him with 
these very qualities. The physician, perhaps, 
has told him that he has heart disease. Let 
him suggest to himself that the physician does 
not know, has made a wrong diagnosis ; let 
him suggest to himself that he has a strong, 
a normal heart — the sub-conscious mind will 
so act upon the cardiac muscles that he shall 
be well. 

Auto-suggestion may be used to cure oneself 
of vices, appetites, passions and immoralities. 
The sub-conscious mind under right self-sug- 
gestion can save a man morally and spiritually 
just as readily as it can save him physically. 

When it is impossible, for one reason or an- 
other, to cause the sub-conscious mind to oper- 
ate for good through auto-suggestion, it may 
be acted upon by suggestion from another. 
The suggestion may be made while the patient 
is in a waking state. If he does not respond, 
he may be thrown into a hypnotic sleep and, 
while thus hypnotized, the sub-conscious mind 
will recall to him things totally forgotten when 
awake. Under this hypnosis he may be led 



314 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

to say and do things from which, when awake, 
he would either shrink, or of which he would 
be incapable. If the person who operates 
upon him suggests health, or otherwise than 
health, the individual will respond, for the 
moment, as though it were his own original 
impulse. 

This is the Emmanuel Movement on general 
principles. It is Psycho-therapeutic ; it is met- 
aphysical, or mind-healing. 

What relation does the Emmanuel Movement 
hold to Christian Science? 

The Emmanuel Movement protests that it 
would have come into existence even if there 
had never been a Christian Scientist. 

However true or untrue this may be, the 
Emmanuel Movement, in spite of its protest, 
must be placed in the same category with 
Christian Science. Like Christian Science, it 
is a metaphysical system of healing. Its heal- 
ing factor is mind, not drugs or medicine, nor 
the surgeon's knife. Like Christian Science, 
its working hypothesis is a wrong and a true 
mind. 

Some of its postulates are very similar. 

Christian Science says the farther we get 
away from the activity of the false mind (that 
is, the upper or surface mind of Emmanuelism) 
the less mind we shall have, and the greater 
the actual power. Christian Science, to prove 
its proposition, says that when a lobster loses 
its claw it replaces it with another. It does 



EMMANtJELlSM 315 

this because it has no wrong mind to suggest 
to it even the existence of the claw. If a man 
had no more mind than a lobster, each time 
he lost a leg, or an arm, or any member of his 
body, he would unconsciously replace it with 
another. 

On page 19 of "Religion and Medicine," we 
are told something similar: 

We are told that as we descend in the scale 
of conscious life we find the recuperative en- 
ergy intensified. If a worm is cut in two, the 
amputated part will be reproduced. In rep- 
tiles the loss of a leg or a tail is made good 
by the growth of a new member. 

This statement is made to illustrate the fact 
that there is a sub-conscious mind; and the 
more there is of this unconscious mind, and 
less there is of the surface mind, the mind 
that is always thrusting itself into conscious- 
ness, the more apt man will be to cure himself 
of physical ills, the more apt will he be to 
repudiate the false suggestions continually 
coming to him from one environment and an- 
other. 

Not only is the Emmanuel Movement, in 
the last analysis, based on precisely the same 
principle as Christian Science; it owns and 
confesses it. 

On page 10 of "Religion and Medicine," 
I find these words: 

"All over this country solid and enduring 
temples are reared by grateful hands and con- 



316 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

secrated to the ideal and name of Mrs. Eddy. 
We must be able to pass beneath the exterior 
of Christian Science and find a truth in it, a 
gift for men, a spiritual power answering to 
men's needs which the churches at present do 
not possess/' 

On page 11 there is this statement: 

"With all its obscurity we find in the sacred 
book of Christian Science (that is, Christian 
Science and Health) great truth, freedom from 
the fetters of sense and passion, the power of 
the soul over the body, victory of the mind 
over its tyrants, fear and anger, the presence 
of God manifested with power; above all, the 
promise of an immense immediate good as 
the result." 

On page 103 we are told that: 

"A new source of power has come into 
many lives to-day through the medium of 
Christian Science." 

If the Emmanuel Movement, by all these 
tokens, is not a legitimate daughter of Chris- 
tian Science, it gives all the praise a dutiful 
daughter might be expected to lavish upon a 
loved and much respected mother. 

If Emmanuelism is not an offspring of 
Christian Science, it belongs to the same genus, 
to the same species. If it claims to differ from 
Christian Science, it is only the difference that 
one degree of the same system claims from 
another, in claiming that it is more advanced 
and better than the other. 



EMMANUELISM 317 

Their postulates when pushed to the limit 
result in the same theological outcome. They 
stand in the same attitude to the Christianity 
of the New Testament. 

Christian Science denies every fundamental 
doctrine of New Testament Christianity. 

What is the relation which the Emmanuel 
Movement holds to Christianity? 

Like Christian Science, it denies the very 
foundation of Christianity. It denies the re- 
vealed range of the person of Christ, his 
work, his office, and his relation to man. It 
affects the whole extent of man's relation to 
Christ and God. 

According to the Emmanuel Movement 
postulate, man has in himself all the resources 
to cure both body and soul. 

Such a being cannot be, upon any natural 
issue, a lost, helpless, hopeless sinner. Such 
a being needs no saviour other than himself — 
none higher than the range or altitude of his 
own humanity. 

He needs no ab extra, no divine Saviour. 

This is an absolute denial of the postulate 
of Holy Scripture. Holy Scripture says, and 
says it without any equivocation, and in lan- 
guage that it is impossible to misapprehend, 
that in man there is no good thing that is not 
gangrened with the touch of sin ; that the mind 
of the natural man is at enmity with God; 
that it is not subject to the law of God, neither, 
indeed, can be ; that man never can, no matter 



318 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

how much or honestly he may try reach 
the standard of God's holiness, nor the stand- 
ard of God's health ; and that man is hopeless- 
ly lost and helplessly undone, needing a Sa- 
viour outside of, and distinct from, himself — 
a Saviour wholly extra to humanity. 

On the issue of the salvability of man physi- 
cally, or morally, the Emmanuel Movement 
and the Word of God are as far apart as the 
East is from the West. 

The Emmanuel Movement lays down the 
proposition that man is a psychic being. As 
a psychic he is able, under the action of right 
mental suggestion, to come into harmonious 
relation with the universal spirit — into a state 
of reconciliation with God. 

But Holy Scripture, recorded in Saint Paul's 
epistle to the Corinthians, says: "the natural 
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of 
God: for they are foolishness unto him: 
neither can he know them, because they are 
spiritually discerned." — I. Corinthians 2 : 14. 

Now, this word translated "natural" in the 
Greek is psukikos, and transliterated is "psy- 
chic," or "soulical." Thus the authorita- 
tive word of Holy Writ is that the psychic 
man not only does not receive the things of 
God, but he cannot know them. He has 
no genius, no capacity in himself for God. 

He is a deficient. 

The antithesis is — immense, 



EMMANUELISM 319 

The Emmanuel Movement says that man 
is an efficient towards God. 

Holy Scripture says he is a deficient. 

Between the natural man and God there is 
an impassable gulf. That gulf exists in the 
difference of nature. Man is a psychic, that 
is, literally, a soulic being. God is a spirit, 
wholly pneumatic. Until man has the Spirit 
of God he cannot accept or understand the 
things of God. 

The Emmanuel Movement is, therefore, an 
absolute repudiation of the Bible doctrine con- 
cerning the constitution of man and his rela- 
tion to the things of God. 

The Emmanuel Movement contradicts the 
whole testimony of God concerning death. On 
page 277 of "Religion and Medicine," there 
is this assertion: 

"Death is as much a part of the divine order 
of the world as life, and, therefore, for all 
God's creatures it means not evil but good." 

Death a part of the divine order of the 
world ! 

Death meant to be good and not evil! 

Death a blessing and a benediction ! 

This is the definition given by Emmanuel- 
ism. 

This definition is against the facts. 

Death is not in the divine order of the world 
as life. Life is an endowment. Death is a 
punishment. Death is not a benediction, but 
a doom. 



320 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

It is not a gift, but a penalty. 

There was no death when the first man was 
created. 

Death was threatened as a penalty, and when 
man sinned, came in as a punishment. 

So the Word of God speaks of it. 

A blessing, a benediction to man, meant to 
come with the same grace as the divine order 
of life! 

Why, then, does the Emmanuel Movement 
try to keep its patients from dying? Why not 
let them die? If death is as much a part of 
the divine and original order in the world as 
life; if it be as natural to die as it is to be 
born (and there are those who say so), why 
not laugh and be merry over death? We 
laugh, we smile, and are glad over the birth 
of a babe. If death is as natural as birth, why 
not have death and funeral parties, and make 
them just as joyous occasions as birth parties? 

Death not meant for evil, but for good ! 

If this be so, then death is a friend and to 
be gladly welcomed. 

Death a friend ! 

Is that God's view of it, as revealed in his 
Word? 

Nay! Hear what God says about death. 
Listen to the characterization he makes of it: 

"The last ENEMY shall be destroyed— 
death." — I. Corinthians 15: 26. 

Not a friend, but an enemy, says God. 

Christian Science says there is no death, 



EMMANUELISM 321 

That is the first lie ever uttered in the 
world. The devil started that lie. He said : 

"Ye shall not surely die.'* — Genesis 3: 4. 

The Emmanuel Movement teaches that death 
is meant for good and not evil, and is, there- 
fore, a friend. 

That is a lie equally as great as the first 
lie. It is a lie because God says that death is 
not a friend, but an enemy. If it is an enemy, 
it cannot be meant for good — an enemy is 
neither the bearer nor the symbol of good. It 
is a lie, this statement, equally as deceiving 
as the Christian Science lie that there is no 
death. 

Death in the divine order! 

Impossible. 

God himself repudiates it as such. 

He says that death is not in the divine, it 
is in the devil, order of things. 

If death were in the divine order, then 
God would be the author of death; just as 
much the author and creator of death as he 
is of life. But God is not the author of death. 
The author of death is the Devil. God says 
so. Speaking by the inspiration of God, 
speaking according to his very spirit and mind, 
Paul says: 

"Him that had the power of death, that is, 
the Devil."— Hebrews 2: 14. 

This is not the mere opinion of Paul. It 
is not a Hebraism come over from the Baby- 
lonish captivity and descended in lineal order 



322 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

to Paul, obsessing his mind. No ! Paul takes 
pains to declare that what he writes is in truth 
the very Word of God. He says: 

"The Word of God which ye heard of us, 
ye received it not as the word of men, but, as 
in truth, the Word of God." — I. Thessalonians 
2:13. 

The Word of God, then, declares that death 
is not in the divine order as life, is not an 
original part of the creation, but a devil order 
of things, and solely because of him. 

The object of redemption is not to reconcile 
us to death, but to give us the victory over 
death. 

We are told that our Lord Jesus Christ 
came into the world that he might destroy 
him that had the power of death, that is, the 
Devil. Destroying him that has the power 
of death, destroys the death which that power 
evokes. Our Lord Jesus Christ died that he 
might swallow up death in his co-equal and 
eternal life with God. He rose that he might 
be the legal, the just, and the unhindered life- 
giver to those who were under the sentence 
and doom of death and who, through fear of 
it, were all their lifetime subject to bondage. 
He came to save, not only the soul, but the 
body of man. He came to save man, not only 
from moral and spiritual, but from physical 
death. The Word of God denies and repudi- 
ates the whole proposition of the Emmanuel 
Movement in regard to de^tbu 



EMMANUELISM 323 

On the basis of the Emmanuel doctrine our 
Lord Jesus Christ was not virgin born, and 
the incarnation of Christ was not a pre-emi- 
nent and isolated fact. No one who accepts 
the premises of Emmanuelism and follows 
them to their logical conclusion can believe 
in, or, for a moment, accept the miraculous 
generation and birth of Jesus Christ. For, if 
it be true that man, the psychic man, has in 
him all the powers that can relate him body 
and soul to God, then there is no need of a 
new and miraculous type of humanity. As 
there is no necessity for a new humanity, then 
Christ is not the type of a new humanity. As 
the natural humanity comes by ordinary gen- 
eration, and Christ is not extraordinary, there 
is no reason why his generation should not 
be as that of all other men — natural and not 
supernatural. God dwelt in him; but God 
dwells in all men, and finds his peculiar en- 
thronement in the sub-conscious mind. The 
enthronement of God in Christ was in the sub- 
conscious mind. While Christ was not super- 
natural, he was exceptional. His exceptional- 
ness consisted in the fact that he allowed his 
sub-conscious mind to dominate. This, then 
(so Emmanuelism would teach), is what Paul 
means when he says, "Let this mind be in you 
which was in Christ Jesus.' He means, of 
course, as Jesus allowed his sub-conscious 
mind to reveal the deity that was in it, so we 



324 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

are to let the sub-conscious mind in us mani- 
fest the God who dwells in us. 

If Emmanuelism be true, there is no basis 
on which to build the virgin birth of Christ, 
no ground for the claim of supernaturalness 
in him. His separateness from the average 
man (and Emmanuelism is forced to admit 
this) is simply because he allows the divine 
life, which is represented by the sub-conscious 
mind, to work. He is an exception to men, 
in that he is the interpreter of God; not the 
God of exterior nature, but the God of human 
nature, the God in man. 

Christian Science says that Jesus was the 
"way shower." 

Emmanuelism would teach that Jesus Christ 
was the interpreter of God, the interpreter of 
God to man, by interpreting man to himself, 
enabling him to see the divinity already within 
him — seeking to awaken the divine sub-con- 
sciousness. 

In its final analysis, therefore, Emmanuel- 
ism, no matter how much it may deny the 
charge, sets aside in logic, if not in actual 
words, the virgin and miraculous origin of 
the Christ. 

Emmanuelism does not point the sinner to 
a crucified Christ. It does not tell him that 
forgiveness of sin is to be found in the atoning 
death of the cross. It does not point him to 
a man risen from the dead, and tell him that 
in this risen Christ there is virtue and power. 



EMMANUELISM 325 

It does not exhort men to touch him by faith 
and get the new and spiritual life which he 
alone can communicate. Emmanuelism, like 
Christian Science says: Look within: all the 
resources to overcome the sense of sin and 
the power of sickness ; all the forces of a new 
and holy life, are in you, resident in your sub- 
conscious mind. And the whole body of 
Christian healing, so Emmanuelism would 
teach us, is based on the principle of intra 
mural resource. The whole movement of 
Christ, so it says, was on the line of mental 
suggestion. 

Christ confined his healings to the specific 
diseases which Emmanuelism professes to 
heal (this is the affirmation of the leaders of 
Emmanuelism). He never healed tuberculosis, 
diphtheria, or typhoid fever. He healed 
neurosis, neurasthenia, hypochondria. He 
cured nervous disorders. He appealed con- 
tinually to the sub-conscious mind, and led 
men, by its operation, to throw ofif their ail- 
ments. Every case of healing (so Emmanuel- 
ism assures us) was an illustration of mind 
operating on matter. 

This is the way in which the celebrated 
healing of the paralytic is to be accounted for. 

You will remember, on that occasion 
the paralyzed man was let down through the 
opened roof, on his bed, to the feet of Jesus. 
When Jesus saw him he said to the man that 
his sins were forgiven. This annoyed the 



326 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

crowd, and they murmured, saying, the 
forgiveness of sins belonged only to God. 
In response to this disapproval he said to 
them that there was no reason to marvel 
at his expression, for it was just as easy to 
tell the man his sins were forgiven, as it 
was to bid him rise, take up his bed and walk ; 
and in order to prove that one was within the 
compass of the other, he did tell the man to 
rise up and walk. You remember, the 
man did as he was commanded and rose a 
well man before their wondering eyes. The 
point to be made is, that the man was a sin- 
ner. He had, no doubt, brooded over his 
sins. This occupation of his mind interfered 
with the proper functioning of his body. Jesus 
relieves his mind by telling him that his sins 
are forgiven, God has nothing against him; 
there is to be no judgment here, or hereafter, 
concerning these sins. It is an immense relief 
to the man's mind. The depression is removed 
from his system ; the blood flows normally to 
all parts of his body; the circulation is com- 
pletely restored; every organ functions as it 
should ; the man feels himself well ; under this 
impulse or restored equilibrium, he flings aside 
the old mattress that had been as a shackle 
upon him and goes forth a free man. 

It is on this principle laid down by Em- 
manuelism that Jesus cast out demons. 

The Emmanuel Movement is in perfect ac- 



EMMANUELISM 327 

cord with Christian Science on the subject of 
demons. 

Christian Science does not believe in de- 
mons. Demons are only evil thoughts. The 
leader and founder of Emmanuelism denies 
the existence of demons. Demonism, so called, 
is simply the obsession of false thoughts — 
false ideas. Jesus cast out these false ideas, 
these obsessing thoughts, by giving mental 
suggestion to the maniacal, the crazy, people 
who thronged upon his path. 

This, of course, explains the incident of the 
man of Gadara. 

According to the gospel record, this man 
had six thousand evil spirits dwelling in his 
body. In "Religion and Medicine, ,, we are 
told that Jesus met the man, spoke soothing- 
ly and consolingly to him, filled him with quiet 
suggestions, until the man, calmed and paci- 
fied, sat down at Jesus' feet. When the crowd 
who had heard of the "miracle" came to see, 
they found the man, indeed, at Jesus' feet, 
clothed and, as it is said, "in his right mind. ,, 
By suggesting the proper thoughts, Jesus en- 
abled the man's "right" mind, his sub-con- 
scious mind, to act freely, until he became 
master of himself, another man. 

This is how, according to Emmanuelism, 
that demons were cast out. It is true, Jesus 
acted as though he believed in the existence of 
demons. 

Is there a contradiction between Jesus and 



328 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

Emmanuelism on this point? Let us hear 
what the leaders of the Emmanuel Movement 
have to say; let us hear their own testimony; 
then we shall be able to judge them "out of 
their own mouth." 

On page 361 of "Religion and Medicine," 
is this unmistakable declaration: 

"As education progresses, belief in demoni- 
acal possessions dies out. The greatest strong- 
holds of the belief to-day are in non-Christian 
countries. It is hard to resist the impression 
that Christ himself shared the common idea. 
Yet we must remember that the narratives 
of the disorder were written by men prepos- 
sessed by the theory of demoniacal action, and 
even the words of Jesus himself come to us 
through the minds of such men. If the evi- 
dence warrants us in believing that Jesus did 
not share the contemporary belief, we must 
maintain that in no way does this fact invali- 
date his spiritual authority as the founder of 
the kingdom of God." 

Let us analyze this amazing statement and 
see its actual contents. 

1. It is ignorance, and not education, which 
believes in demoniacal possessions. 

2. It is evident that Jesus shared the impres- 
sions of the ignorant, superstitious, and credu- 
lous, people of his times. It seems plain that 
he fully believed in demons. 

3. There is only one way to "resist" the 
impression that Jesus believed in demons, and 



EMMANUELISM 329 

that is, to recognize that his words have not 
been correctly reported, or they have been 
misinterpreted by the ignorance and supersti- 
tion of the apostles who profess to give his 
words to us. This means, of course, that the 
New Testament is not an inspired record — 
that is to say, not divinely inspired; but, on 
the contrary, a writing originating in human 
ignorance and superstition. 

4. If the evidence, however, is to be believed 
that Jesus really did accept the doctrine of 
demonism, and really professed to cast out 
evil spirits, then this must be accounted for 
on the ground that Jesus himself was not as 
learned as the men who wrote "Religion and 
Medicine. " He did not know as much about 
psychology as they; or, 

5. If Jesus did not really believe in demons, 
nor in Satanic powers, then he simply con- 
ceded to the ignorance of his hearers — winked 
his eye (so to speak) at the ignorance and 
superstition of the times. 

And now mark the ethics of Emmanuelism, 
which this analysis reveals: 

"In no way [say the leaders and the found- 
ers of Emmanuelism] does this fact [the pos- 
sibility that Jesus believed in demons, was 
ignorant, therefore, and superstitious ; or, that 
he pretended to believe as the crowd did in 
order to placate them] — in no way does this 
fact invalidate his spiritual authority as the 
founder of the kingdom of God." 



330 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

It is hard to find sufficient vocabulary to 
deal with this conclusion. Emmanuelism de- 
nies the unhindered wisdom and knowledge of 
Jesus. It puts him on the level of ignorance 
and superstition with the most ignorant and 
superstitious; or, it makes him a dishonest 
deceiver, knowing what the people believed, 
and willing to confirm them in what he knew 
to be untrue. Emmanuelism makes Jesus 
either an ignorant and superstitious man, or 
a wilful and dishonest teacher, stooping to the 
lowest level of deception to win the popular 
applause. And yet, in face of all this, Em- 
manueiism says it makes no difference in the 
authority of Jesus as a spiritual teacher, as 
the foundation on which is built, or to be built, 
the kingdom of God. What must be thought 
of such a concept of ethics? What shall be 
thought of the honesty of Emmanuelism itself? 
Does it not justify the question how far Em- 
manuelism is concealing its own unbelief that 
it may deceive the people ? 

While Emmanuelism recognizes that Jesus 
used mental suggestion in his so-called mira- 
cles of healing, it calls a halt in the acceptance 
of the miracles which, seemingly, transcribe 
the laws of nature. Such miracles as turning 
water into wine, giving sight to the blind, rais- 
ing the dead, stilling the storm, it passes over 
in silence. It says it will not accept these mira- 
cles till science and modern scholarship have 
given permission to do so. In other words. 



EMMANUELISM 331 

Emmanuelisrn limits the miracles of Christ 
to the realm of the metaphysical — to the realm 
of mere mental suggestion. And it is here 
Emmanuelisrn finds explanation for the mira- 
cles of the Apostolic age. On page 94 of 
"Religion and Medicine," we are told that the 
phenomenon of the speaking with tongues was 
due to auto-suggestion. 

It is an astounding thing to learn that such 
marvellous, epoch-making events as those 
which took place on the day of Pentecost (the 
descent of the Holy Ghost, the manifestation 
of the fiery tongues, and the speaking with 
tongues, so that every man heard in his own 
language the wonderful things of God) were 
all due to auto-suggestion; practically, to the 
exercised will power of each disciple. 

It is on the basis of auto-suggestion, we are 
told, that prayer is made effective. 

Prayer is, when effective, subjective and 
not objective. 

The individual gets the moral and spiritual 
answers to his prayers, not because God steps 
in, but because by auto-suggestion he creates 
the condition desired in his own mind. On 
this basis prayer may be answered, to a greater 
or less degree, for the sick. The answer may 
be communicated by mental suggestion. When 
you are praying for the sick, you are sending 
mental suggestions of health into their mind. 
The answers will be all the more certain if 
the sick can know that you are praying for 



332 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

them. The moment your friend knows that 
you are praying for him he will, if he has 
faith in you, join in partnership with your 
suggestion, and, sooner or later, auto-sugges- 
tion will begin to work in him. He will sug- 
gest health to himself. He will repudiate the 
suggestion of sickness or indisposition. He 
will continually suggest to himself that he is 
well; that he is full of vigor and tone. His 
whole energies will be at work along the line 
of recuperation and reinforcement of the 
nerves; working together in partnership with 
the attitude of prayer and as one prayed for, 
you, and the one-time sick man, create new 
psychic and physiologic conditions. 

The one supreme thing required in the 
scheme of metaphysical healing on the part 
of the patient is faith. 

No matter what the object of that faith 
may be; it may be faith in Christian Science, 
Theosophy, Mahommedanism — faith is the 
condition. Faith is the condition in which 
neither Christian Science nor Theosophy, Ma- 
hommedanism nor Confucianism, Emmanuel- 
ism, nor God himself, does the work. It is 
a faith condition in which mental suggestion, 
either from the operator or the individual, 
may work. Emmanuelism is, therefore, a sys- 
tem which will work just as well in Christian 
Science, in Theosophy, Buddhism, Confucian- 
ism, New Thought, Agnosticism, or any other 
"ism." A system which will work as well in 



EMMANUELISM 333 

the name of Mahommedanism and Agnos- 
ticism, in the name of Buddhism as well as 
Christianity, can hardly be that Christianity 
which honors and glorifies the "faith once for 
all delivered to the saints"; hardly that faith 
which testifies that Jesus Christ is the only 
name given under heaven whereby men must 
be saved. 

Nay ! Emmanuelism is too supple, too agree- 
able, too close in fellowship with all that de- 
nies Christ and the truth for which he stands, 
to be of Christ or to be Christian. 

It cannot be Christian, no matter how much 
it may make the claim. 

Is that Christian which invalidates the 
doctrine of the fall and makes the whole 
argument of the epistle to the Romans 
as worthless as an old wives' fable? Is 
that Christian which so exalts the meta- 
physical resources of the natural man that 
he shall expect to find in himself all that makes 
for salvation both here and hereafter? Is 
that Christian which, in face of God's own 
denial of it, teaches that death (which he in- 
flicted as a penalty) is a boon and a benedic- 
tion, intended for good and not evil, for peace 
and not punishment? Is that Christian which 
renders a virgin-born Son of God useless, 
makes the cross of Christ no more than mar- 
tyrdom, and, by every fundamental proposi- 
tion of its system, turns regeneration into a 
reasonless theory? Can you call that Chris- 



334 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

tian which invades the deity of Christ, brings 
his miracles down to the dead level of mental 
suggestion, circumscribes and limits his heal- 
ings to a class of cures which requires no 
miraculous energy at all? Is that Christian 
which excuses the unscientific belief of Jesus 
on the ground of an ignorance that makes him 
no match for the education, the culture, and 
the science of this age? Is that Christian 
which not only sets aside the nature miracles 
of Christ, but takes this book, the New Testa- 
ment, and tells us that the words of Christ 
reported therein may be, after all, only the 
words of ignorant, partisan, and superstitious 
disciples? Is that Christian which tells us 
that only so much of the New Testament may 
be accepted as modern science and scholarship 
shall verify (and Emmanuelism tells us with- 
out any equivocation that this is where it 
stands, fair and square) ? Can it be said of 
any of these things, and of this attitude of 
Emmanuelism, that it is Christian? It is as 
the bond slave of modern science and scholar- 
ship that Emmanuelism comes; nevertheless, 
claiming to be Christian. It dares to take 
upon itself the solemn, holy, and yet prophetic 
name — Emmanuel. Hear how it confesses 
itself under the tutelage of human science and 
scholarship. In "Religion and Medicine," page 
13, there is the official declaration: 

"We (the authors, founders, teachers, lead- 
ers, and apostles of Emmanuelism) have taken 



EMMANUELISM 335 

our stand fairly and squarely on the religion 
of Christ as that religion is revealed in the 
New Testament and as it is interpreted by 
modern scholarship." 

Mark that phrase, "interpreted by modern 
scholarship." And God knows we understand 
well enough, some of us, how modern scholar- 
ship interprets the New Testament and Christ. 
It repudiates the fall of man, the virgin birth, 
atonement, resurrection of the body, regen- 
eration, the Coming of Christ, and the verbal 
and plenary inspiration of the Bible. We know 
what modern scholarship means. It means to 
hand the New Testament over to the naturalist 
and the modernist in religion, to the men who 
are the supreme, rank unbelievers of the hour 
in the " faith once for all delivered to the 
saints." 

How would you like a man to settle your 
father's estate who, during all the lifetime of 
your father, had been engaged in robbing him, 
dishonoring his paper, his writing, his con- 
tracts? Well, that is modern scholarship. Its 
whole history is one of robbery — robbing us 
of the God and Christ the Bible reveals ; dis- 
honoring the writings of the law-givers, the 
prophets and the apostles; testifying to the 
worthlessness of the covenant contracts re- 
corded therein. 

Emmanuelism boasts that it comes in the 
name of modern scholarship. It puts Christ 
and Christianity under the dixit of that schol- 



336 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

arship. This, of itself, is a witness that it is 
not the Christianity of Christ. It is not Chris- 
tianity at all. No matter how much it may 
use the name of Christ and take shelter in his 
church, it is, simply, a natural religion in dis- 
guise. It is Christian Science in disguise. It 
is Theosophy in disguise. It is the religion 
of the psychic, and not the pneumatic, man. 
Its Christ is not the Christ who created the 
world, created human nature for himself, 
made an actual sacrifice in that nature by 
death, rose, ascended in the body in which he 
died, liveth in divine, human form on the 
throne of the tiniverse, the Second Adam, the 
new head of the race* having all healing pow- 
ers in himself, both moral and physical. Nay ! 
it is a false Christ, the Christ of naturalism, 
the Christ of merely human resource. Its 
God is not the God of revelation, but the God 
of nature and fallible human science. Its 
Gospel is not the Gospel of the blood and the 
empty grave. Its Gospel of hope is the Gos- 
pel of auto-suggestion (it should be called 
auto-deception). Its enthusiasm is the en- 
thusiasm of humanity. Its promise, the evolu- 
tion of the natural man into the realm of deity. 
It is the old devil lie whispered in Eden to 
mortal man, "Ye shall be as gods." 

That is the relation which Emmanuelism 
sustains to New Testament Christianity. It 
is, in final terms, the repudiation of the Chris- 
tianity and the Christ of the New Testament. 



EMMANUELISM 337 

What, let it now be asked, is the relation 
which Emmanuelism sustains to society? 

I answer it is one of menace, of actual peril. 

Who can measure, really, the extent of the 
peril that lies in mental suggestion ? Who can 
say what crimes may not be committed if this 
science of mental suggestion and lawless hyp- 
notism is permitted to work ? What home will 
be safe when the mental suggestionist enters 
where wife and daughter, as well as husband 
and son, dwell? Who can estimate the re- 
sults of a system which on this side claims 
the right of one personality to invade another, 
and on the other side cultivates an attitude 
of subjectivity to this invasion? What does 
it mean but the opening of doors for the pos- 
sible entrance of that which may be as ter- 
ible, if not worse than demonism? What a 
spectacle when men and women shall be found 
living in a community possessed by, and under 
the power and personality of, another! 

It is a menace, a peril of perils to society. 

Coming in the name of science, it is a men- 
ace to one of the noblest departments of sci- 
ence — the science of medicine itself. 

Let this system spread throughout a com- 
munity; let it become universal in the name 
of Christ and the church, and in a few years 
all the science of the devoted men who have 
given themselves to medicine will be rendered 
null and void ; and who can measure the state 
of society when every freak who thinks he 



338 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

has a call to arouse the sub-conscious mind in 
others is let loose upon the community with 
the banner cry, "No more drugs, no medicine, 
no more doctors — only mental healing" ? 

If it is a peril to society on merely natural 
grounds, what shall be said of it as a religious 
peril to society? If, for the next few years, 
every church in the country could be persuaded 
to have a clerical clinic in it, there would be 
only one religious profession that would not 
be undermined by it, and that would be Chris- 
tian Science. If Christian Science wishes to 
ruin and destroy the orthodoxy of the New 
Testament Church, let it encourage Emman- 
uelism. 

It is time for Christians to arouse and re- 
pudiate this attempt to turn the Christian min- 
istry into a body of hypnotists. It is time to 
repudiate this subtle attempt to turn the church 
into a hospital of clerical mind healers and 
auto-suggestionists. It is time to repudiate 
the too open bid of the Devil to bring the 
church down from the heavenly places in 
Christ Jesus and side track it amid Theoso- 
phists, New Thoughtists, Christian Scientists, 
and Psycho-therapists. 

It is time Christians awoke and heard the 
rebuke and warning of the Lord, "Ye can dis- 
cern the signs of the skies ; can ye not discern 
the signs of the times?" 

All this condition I have been describing 
means that we are entering the last days of 



EMMANUELISM 339 

which our Lord gives solemn and precise 
warning; those days in which many should 
come in his name and deceive many. 

Emmanuelism, like Christian Science, is one 
of the foretold deceivers. Its growth and ac- 
ceptance mean the setting aside of the cross 
of Christ and the empty tomb. 

It means turning the gaze away from the 
only Saviour who can save forever. It means 
turning the lost soul to gaze upon the false 
hope of its own self-deceived mind and heart. 

It means the subordination of the soul to 
the body. 

It means an unreal salvation in time, and a 
sure damnation in eternity. 

I would exhort all who read these lines to 
repudiate Emmanuelism and any false physical 
or spiritual hope it may hold out in the name 
of Christ. Turn away from it and look to him 
who in himself has the power to heal both 
body and soul. Turn to him who, because 
he died as an acceptable sacrifice for sin, rose 
from the dead, and now lives as the risen head 
and source of eternal life to men. Come to 
him as the poor woman did, touch him by 
faith, and receive from him, not mental sug- 
gestion, not the impulse of the sub-conscious 
mind, but that new, that wondrous, that glo- 
rious thing, the "divine nature," which he 
alone can give, and be made at once spiritually 
whole with the virtue that goeth out of him; 
that spiritual virtue which is the assurance of 



340 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

healing to the soul now, and the guaranty of 
a perfect body, in the day when he shall ap- 
pear and all his ransomed church with him. 

To every Christian I would give the word 
of warning which Emmanuelism and its kin- 
dred deceptions (as signs of the times) signify 
— the warning that the Lord is at hand — that 
in an unlooked-for moment he may secretly 
come to take to himself those alone who are 
really his. 



THE KINGDOM OF 
COMMERCE 

and 

The Restoration of Babylon 

"Then the angel that talked with me went 
forth, and said unto me, Lift up now thine 
eyes, and see what is this that goeth forth. 

And I said, What is it? And he said, This 
is an ephah that goeth forth. He said more- 
over, This is their resemblance through all 
the earth. And, behold, there was lifted up 
a talent of lead; and this is a woman that sit- 
teth in the midst of the ephah. 

And he said, This is wickedness. And he 
cast it into the midst of the ephah ; and he cast 
the weight of lead upon the mouth thereof. 

Then lifted I up mine eyes, and looked, and, 
behold, there came out two women, and the 
wind was in their wings ; for they had wings 
like the wings of a stork; and they lifted up 
the ephah between the earth and the heaven. 

Then I said to the angel that talked with 
me, Whither do these bear the ephah? 

And he said to me, To build it an house in 
the land of Shinar : and it shall be established, 
and set there upon her own base." — Zechariah 
5:5-11. 



342 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

The ephah was an instrument of measure. 
It was in the form of a box. Its "resemblance 
through all the earth," to which the angel 
draws special attention, is the announcement 
that it is henceforth to be regarded throughout 
the earth as the standard of measure. 

The talent is a sealing weight stamped with 
the image of a woman and forming the lid of 
the box. 

The two women with the wings of a stork 
who bear it away, do so, that they may set it up 
on a base where it may be seen and recognized 
throughout the whole earth as the official 
standard of measure. 

Two women supporting between them a 
shield, or anchor, or holding scales, or some 
instrument of weight or measure, have, from 
time immemorial, been accepted among all na- 
tions as symbols of commerce. These women, 
therefore, draw attention to a system of com- 
merce, of barter, of exchange and trade. 

The fact that the ephah is uplifted and then 
established by them as a universal standard of 
measure sets forth the idea of a system of uni- 
versal and authoritatively established com- 
merce. 

If we turn our eyes abroad upon the world 
we shall find that the one great object before 
the nations of the earth to-day is this image 
of commerce, drawing them with all the se- 
ductive influence a siren woman might exercise 
upon the heart of man. The one great aim 



THE KINGDOM OF COMMERCE 343 

on the part of each is to win the favor of this 
mighty mistress. The world powers are en- 
gaged in a Titanic struggle for commercial 
supremacy. To this end mills are built, fac- 
tories founded, forests felled, lands sown, har- 
vests reaped and ships launched. Because of 
this struggle for the mastery of the world's 
market the nations reach out and extend their 
borders. For this reason Europe has parcelled 
out Africa. It is far this that France is at 
Casablanca and Spain has sent fifty thousand 
of her best troops to Melilla. Under this im- 
pulse the treaty of Algeciras was made and 
still keeps the eyes of statesman and diplomat 
turned now to Morocco, now to Tunis and 
anon to Algiers. This is why Japan lays 
her greedy, necessitous, lawless, and still bar- 
baric, grip on Corea, and looks with covetous 
eyes on Manchuria and the Philippines. For 
this, all the nations of the earth, in one fashion 
or another, are knocking at the doors of China, 
cutting canals between the oceans, and survey- 
ing the islands of the sea. It is this demand 
for commercial headship which feeds the fires 
of internecine strife among the Latin republics 
of South America. And it is for this reason, 
and this reason alone, that Dreadnaughts and 
super-Dreadnaughts are being built, armies 
multiplied and arsenals filled. It was a sug- 
gestive but logical spectacle the other day 
when England assembled one hundred and fifty 
of her giant war vessels in the Thames River, 



344 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

anchoring them at the London docks, display- 
ing her sea power and giving forth her com- 
mercial challenge in the greatest seaport of 
the world. 

The struggle of commerce brings the na- 
tions face to face, making it more and more 
necessary to equalize tariffs and balance trade. 
As the world becomes geographically smaller ; 
as it is girdled by flashes of wireless telegraphy 
and linked by ocean cables ; as time is nullified 
and distance destroyed ; as nations talk to, and 
almost touch, each other across the once divid- 
ing seas and barrier lands; as the whisper 
breathed in the markets of the East is heard 
in the exchanges of the West; in proportion 
as the world consciousness becomes one and 
universally and coincidentally sensitive, it be- 
comes also more and more a necessity that there 
shall be a standard of measure common to 
all. Just as State banks in this country gave 
way to National banks ; as narrow gauge roads 
yielded to broad gauge, so the nations find 
themselves obliged to break over their own 
localisms and seek for this unit of measure. 
And it is coming. It is already here. The 
French metric system is rapidly assuming the 
proportion of a universal and accepted 
measure. 

The need of commerce, of general business, 
for a universal standard of measure, demands 
also a common and universal language, a lan- 
guage that will make it possible for the na- 



THE KINGDOM OF COMMERCE 345 

tions to transact their affairs in a speech un- 
derstood by all. Such a language has been 
created. It is known as "Esperanto." It has 
its grammar and dictionary. Enthusiastic con- 
ventions, with delegates from all parts of the 
world, discuss and proclaim it as the unit of 
international intercourse, the vocal and oral 
bond of a world fraternity, the perfect tongue 
for the interchange and the fashioning of com- 
mon thought. 

Every hour the signs indicate that this new- 
made language is outrunning, outstripping, 
and far anticipating the announcement of the 
prophet, that the time should come when the 
Lord would turn to the people a pure (that is, 
universal) language; anticipating the divine 
tongue and fashioning itself apart from the 
hand and inspiration of the Almighty; and 
thus witnessing that we are steadily drawing 
near to that unity of speech and idea which 
prevailed in the hour when the world with its 
pride, its self-sufficiency, its arrogance and 
forgetfulness of God, sought to build a tower 
whose topmost height should reach to heaven 
and render man immune from coming judg- 
ment. 

Steadily the world is moving forward along 
the plane of this unity — unity of measure, 
unity of speech and unity of commerce. 

When Zechariah sees the women with the 
stork wings bearing away the ephah, he asks 
the angel with whom he had been talking 



346 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

whither they are bearing it. The angel tells 
him they are taking it to the land of Shinar, 
to Babylonia, to that spot where old Babylon 
lies in ruins. The women are carrying the 
ephah there that they may build it a home, set 
it up, and establish it on a recognized base. 

As the women set forth commerce in its 
activity, and the ephah the standard of uni- 
versal measure, it is the definite, angelic dec- 
laration that Babylon is to become the site, 
the base, the center and, therefore, the estab- 
lished and recognized capital of a wide, far- 
reaching and universal system of commerce, 
a veritable world kingdom of common inter- 
ests. As Babylon was then, and is now, over- 
thrown and in ruins, it is the logical and un- 
qualified testimony that Babylon must be re- 
built — that Babylon has yet a future. 

To this the objection is made that Babylon, 
in the divine prophecies, was to be totally de- 
stroyed and never again rebuilded or inhabited. 
The prophecy of Jeremiah is quoted as giving 
the details of its final destruction, and the 
words of Isaiah as proclaiming its perpetual 
desolation. The words of Isaiah, it is said, 
have been made good to the very letter; for 
two thousand years, it is said, Babylon has 
been a complete and woful ruin; every pass- 
ing traveler shuns it; the Arab will not pitch 
his tent there; no shepherd will keep his 
flocks there ; it is the home of wild beasts ; the 
ruins are the abode of doleful creatures ; owls 



THE KINGDOM OF COMMERCE 347 

disturb the night silence, and desolation reigns 
supreme. 

But the truth is, Babylon has never been 
made an entire desolation. The word of the 
prophet has not been completely fulfilled. It 
was not fulfilled in the Apostle Peter's day. 
In his first general epistle, written in the year 
66 of the Christian era, nearly eight hundred 
years after Isaiah's prophecy, he testifies that 
there was a church at Babylon, and, conse- 
quently, a Babylon that was inhabited. In- 
deed, there has never been a time since the 
foundation of the city when it was not, in 
some degree, inhabited. At the present mo- 
ment the town of Hillah, a town of some fif- 
teen or twenty thousand inhabitants, is built 
upon its site, and out of the very material, the 
very brick and stone, of the ancient city. But, 
further, the prophecy of Zechariah concerning 
Babylon as the established base of the world's 
commerce was made some twenty or thirty 
years after Babylon was supposed to be de- 
stroyed forever, and must, in the nature of 
the case, refer to a period yet future. When 
we turn to the New Testament we find a de- 
scription of that future Babylon. It is given 
in the eighteenth chapter of the Book of the 
Revelation. The Book of the Revelation pre- 
sents us with the picture of two distinct, future 
Babylons — the Mystic and Commercial Baby- 
lon. The Mystic Babylon is described in the 
seventeenth chapter. The symbol is that of 



348 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

a drunken, fallen woman robed in scarlet, 
holding in her hand a cup of abominations and 
filthiness with which she has seduced the na- 
tions and led them into iniquity. She sits upon 
a ten-horned beast, itself the divinely ap- 
pointed symbol of the revived Roman empire 
under its final and coming head, and the angel 
who interprets the symbol to John, the Beloved 
disciple, says unto him, "and the woman thou 
sawest is that great city, which reigneth over 
the kings of the earth/' — Revelation 17: 18. 

The word Babylon in this chapter is used 
for, and signifies, Rome. Nor in this transfer 
of one name for another is there anything un- 
usual or forced. In the eleventh chapter of 
this same Revelation the names Sodom and 
Egypt are used as equivalents for Jerusalem, 
as it is written: 

"And their dead bodies shall lie in the street 
of the great city which spiritually [that is, 
symbolically] is called Sodom and Egypt 
where our Lord was crucified" (Jerusalem). — 
Revelation 11:9. 

As Jerusalem (where our Lord was cruci- 
fied) is spiritually or symbolically called So- 
dom and Egypt, equally so is Rome called 
Babylon. That the Babylon of the seventeenth 
chapter of Revelation is Rome is corrobora- 
tively evident from the characteristic color of 
scarlet (the color both of Imperial and Papal 
Rome), the topographical situation of the city 
on her seven hills or mounts, the blood stain 



THE KINGDOM OF COMMERCE 349 

of the saints and the martyrs of Jesus 
(whether at the hands of Emperors or Popes), 
and, above all, in the Spirit-inspired declara- 
tion that it is the city reigning, when this was 
written, "over the kings of the earth." The 
city that reigned at the time when John in 
the isle of Patmos beheld the vision, was 
Rome, and only Rome, the then proud mistress 
of the world. Babylon, therefore, in this par- 
ticular chapter of the Revelation sets forth 
Rome. But it sets it forth in a mystic or sym- 
bolic sense. Mystically and symbolically, it 
represents that false and corrupt system which 
makes its capital to-day in the actual city of 
Rome, and which, after the true Church (sym- 
bolized by the New Jerusalem) shall have 
been translated from earth to heaven to meet 
the Lord as the descending Bridegroom, will 
become the depositary of all the odds and 
ends, all the philosophy and infidelity of a re- 
jected Protestantism, and will, for a time, be- 
come the world's accepted religion of state 
till, at an ordained moment, Antichrist shall 
turn upon it, trample it beneath the feet of 
his kings and destroy it forever. 

This is mystic Babylon, casting its shadow 
religiously over the earth to-day in the in- 
creased power of Romanism and the steady 
down-grade of Protestantism; the shadowy 
forecast of the hybrid combination that is yet 
to dominate the earth for a space. 

In the eighteenth chapter we have neither 



350 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

symbolic Babylon nor actual Rome, but the 
real and actual city of Babylon. 

The proof that this is not the Babylon of 
the preceding chapter is to be found in the 
fact that in that chapter the ten kings hate 
the mystic Babylon and "make her desolate 
and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn 
her with fire" (Revelation 17: 16) ; while the 
"kings of the earth" (and- these are the same 
kings, the ten kings of the seventeenth chap- 
ter) bewail and lament when they see the 
burning and destruction of the Babylon of the 
eighteenth chapter, and say, "Alas, alas, that 
great city Babylon, that mighty city" (Reve- 
lation 18: 8-10). 

Surely, the Babylon that is "hated" and 
"burned" in the one chapter cannot be the 
Babylon whose burning and destruction are 
lamented and bewailed in the next chapter — 
and that lamentation and bewailing by the 
very kings who hated, burned and destroyed 
the Babylon of the preceding chapter. 

These Babylons are distinct. 

The Babylon of the seventeenth chapter is 
the ecclesiastical system now centered at 
Rome, and to be the state religion of Anti- 
christ for a time. The Babylon of the eight- 
eenth chapter is the actual Babylon of the fu- 
ture. That there is a similarity of statement 
concerning them, as, for example, the "purple 
and scarlet, the gold and precious stones," 
common to both, is true simply because both 



THE KINGDOM OF COMMERCE 351 

cities, actual Rome and actual Babylon, are 
to be identified with Antichrist, the one ecclesi- 
astically, the other commercially and polit- 
ically, each forming part of the immense world 
system that is to precede the coming and king- 
dom of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

The eighteenth chapter gives us the Baby- 
lon which Zechariah sees as the base or center 
of the world's final commerce, the city whose 
destruction and perpetual desolation both Jere- 
miah and Isaiah foretold. 

According to the Word of God, this resur- 
rected Babylon will be an immense city. It 
is called Babylon the Great to distinguish it 
from the former Babylon, the Babylon of 
Nebuchadnezzar, known as Great Babylon, 
which he builded. This will be Babylon the 
Great, the supreme, the final. It will be a city 
of buying and selling for the whole earth. 
In it will be the merchandise of gold and sil- 
ver, of precious stones and pearls, of purple 
silk and costly wools. There will be displayed 
vessels of use and vessels of art; vessels of 
wood and brass and iron and marble. There 
will be bazaars filled with cinnamon and fra- 
grant odours, ointment and frankincense, wine 
and oil, fine flour and wheat. Markets will 
be crowded with cattle, sheep and horses. 
There will be vast manufactories for the pro- 
duction of every conceivable form of fast fly- 
ing vehicles. There will be merchandise of 
bodies and souls. Women will sell their bodies 



352 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

as of yore and men will sell their souls. It 
will be a city of exchange, of trade, of manu- 
facture, of construction and art. All that the 
desire of man can suggest, all that his lust 
may covet, all that genius can invent, and all 
that the power of money can produce, will be 
there. 

It will be a city of untold riches, of astound- 
ing extent of capital. It will be made a port 
of entry (the old canals will be deepened) ; 
ships of the heaviest tonnage will anchor at 
its wharves. Its docks will be piled with the 
world's output. Whatever has been grown, 
or cultivated, or made, traded, or discovered, 
will be found unloaded and loading from the 
great leviathans of the outer deeps. 

It will be a city given over to pleasure as 
well as to business. There will be riotous joy 
and ceaseless feasting. The blood will be hot 
in the veins, wealth will flow as from foun- 
tains, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, 
and the pride of life, will find unexampled em- 
phasis within its borders. The round of busi- 
ness will be rhythmed by the round of pleasure, 
self-gratification and ever-enlarging desire. 
Money will be the god, pleasure the high- 
priest, and unchecked passion, the ritual of 
worship. 

It will be a city of music. Amid the thun- 
der, crash, and din of business, will be heard 
the harmonies of vocal and instrumental music. 
There will be heard the voice of "harpers, and 



THE KINGDOM OF COMMERCE 353 

musicians, and of pipers and trumpeters." The 
world's best singers and players will 
be there. The congested wealth of the 
earth will draw the genius both of voice 
and hand. 

It will be not only the capital of busi- 
ness, the theatre of trade, the arena of 
exchange, the supreme conservatory of 
music, the center of art, the whirlpool of 
mad and maddening excess, it will be, also, 
the headquarters of the world's most advanced 
and most imposing occultism. The curiosity 
of the West and the fatalistic mysticism of 
the East will center there and bring about the 
most tremendous manifestation from the un- 
seen world ever recorded in human history. It 
will be the rendezvous of all the expert me- 
diums of the earth. Those who desire to con- 
sult the dead will go there. Just as men and 
women now go to Paris for fashion and sen- 
suous pleasures, so multitudes will flock to 
Babylon to seek connection with the dead, 
with spirits from the beyond. Demons, dis- 
embodied souls, unclean spirits, will find at 
Babylon the supreme opportunity to material- 
ize themselves through chosen agents, to de- 
ceive, intoxicate, and lead captive the children 
of men. 

Babylon, it is said, shall become "the habi- 
tation of devils [demons] and the hold [head- 
quarters] of every foul spirit." The gates of 
Hades will be opened and shoals of lost spirits 



354 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

will float upward from the lower regions to 
the city, while from the dark abysses of the 
atmospheric heavens the rebel spirits of old 
time will once more descend to revel amid 
earth's affairs, and rejoice for a space in the 
world's surrender to sensualism and limitless 
sin. 

It will be, at once, the most beautiful and 
the most wanton of cities. The wealth that 
will flood into it will enable men to build like 
princes. The skill of modern construction will 
seek to outvie the ancient splendors. Great 
as were the tower of Belus and the hanging 
gardens ; marvellous as were the marble quays 
and colonnaded streets ; astounding as were the 
palaces and colossal the walls of former times, 
the new Babylon will easily surpass them all 
in its wonders, its wickedness and beauty. If 
ever there can be a time when sin may be suc- 
cessfully plated with gold, and vice may be 
made to appear as noble as virtue, it will be 
then. 

Its topographical situation, like that of Chi- 
cago, will make it the railway center of the 
old continents of Europe and Asia. Commerce 
will no longer necessitously plod the slow 
route of the Suez Canal, but move on lines 
of direct communication. Merchandise will 
be shipped from London and Paris to Baby- 
lon. > There will be through rates from New 
York, Tokio and Canton. North and South, 
East and West, will pour the wealth of the 



THE KINGDOM OF COMMERCE 355 

world's traffic here ; from hence it will be dis- 
tributed to the earth's circumference. 

Babylon will have become the commercial 
capital of the world. 

And this Babylon will be ruled and con- 
trolled by a supreme master mind, a man who 
shall combine in himself all the varied genius 
of the human race. He will be soldier and 
statesman, orator and financier, scientist and 
demagogue, tyrant and liberalist, leading 
armies and addressing conventions, making 
treaties and breaking them. Honored and 
feared, worshipped and hated, he it is who 
shall be the founder of new Babylon, its civic 
ruler, king by title, undisputed head of com- 
merce, and king of the actual kingdom of com- 
merce. Master of the East, both by reason of 
commercial relations and military success, he 
will receive from western Europe a call to arbi- 
trate its turbulent affairs, and, in the end, will 
be exalted by unanimous consent to be a sort 
of king of kings, the recognized head over the 
powers now dwelling in the territory once oc- 
cupied by imperial Rome. To the titles king 
of Babylon, king of Assyria, will be added 
that of Prince of Rome. It will be a political 
miracle — the sudden resurrection of the Rome 
of the Caesars, outreaching the dream of a 
Napoleon or the effort of a Charlemagne, and 
once more making the fourth empire of 
prophecy the dominant power in the earth. 

Rome on her seven hills in the West will 



356 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

be the acknowledged capital, where for a time 
this startling person will sustain and advocate 
Romanism with all its adjuncts of Judaism, 
Paganism, corrupt Protestantism, Socialism, 
demonism and material philosophy ; but Baby- 
lon will remain the unquestioned commercial 
capital from whence he shall dictate the climac- 
teric politics of the age. 

From the beginning of the divine record to 
the last, this man's shadow falls athwart the 
sacred page. We find that shadow in Nimrod, 
the mighty hunter, whose kingdom began at 
Babel. We see it in Pharaoh, who persecuted 
the people of God in Egypt ; in Saul, the false 
and demon possessed king of Israel; in 
Nebuchadnezzar, the golden head of the Gen- 
tile image ; in the first Herod, who would have 
killed the infant Christ ; in the last Herod, who 
exalted himself as a god and was smitten with 
sudden death; in the conqueror on the white 
horse going forth conquering and to conquer ; 
and, finally, in that wild beast after whom all 
the world wonders, and who opens his mouth 
that he may blaspheme God. 

He is presented to us in the Word of God 
under many and varied names; not only is 
he known as "king of Babylon/' as the 
"Assyrian," as "the king," as the "man who 
maketh the earth to tremble," as the "shaker 
of the nations," "the dragon in the sea," "the 
man who heapeth the nations to himself," "the 
king of fierce countenance" possessing a 



THE KINGDOM OF COMMERCE 357 

strange god, he whom the Son of God saith 
should "come in his own name," and scores of 
other titles for which there is no space here, 
but he whom we also know as "the man of 
sin" of Paul, "the son of perdition," "the 
wicked one," and whom John, the Beloved 
disciple, names as "the Antichrist." 

Babylon and Antichrist! 

The two are indissolubly linked together. 

They are as linked together as Jerusalem 
and Christ. 

So surely as Christ will yet come to Jerusa- 
lem, so surely will Antichrist precede him and 
come to Babylon. 

It is as certain as the sun in heaven, as set- 
tled as the throne of God above the sun, that 
Jerusalem will be "builded upon her own 
heap," that "the city shall be built to the Lord 
from the tower of Hananeel and to the gate 
of the corner," and that "it shall not be plucked 
up, nor thrown down, any more forever." — 
Jeremiah 31: 38-40. 

It is just as sure, just as certain, that Baby- 
lon will be rebuilded, established upon her 
own base, as the city of the false Christ, the 
world's "coming man," the world's long-ex- 
pected god. 

And certain events now taking place in the 
East bear witness that the day of Babylon is 
at hand, yes, that it is at the very doors. 

A notable sign that calls for reading with 
wide-open eyes is the endeavor that Germany 



358 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

has been making to build a railway to the East 
through Bagdad to Babylon, and the dream of 
the German Emperor concerning Germany's 
commercial supremacy in the East. 

William of Germany has dreamed of the 
possibility of a German railway from Ham- 
burg to the Persian gulf; a railway running 
through the fertile plains of Shinar, enabling 
him to outstep England, checkmate Russia, 
and anticipate the on-sweep of Japan to con- 
trol the affairs of China and the East. 

It was this desire which made him and 
Abdul Hamid of Turkey the closest of politi- 
cal friends. The German Emperor's desire 
to get into the prophetic land of Shinar has 
been the making of strange policies in the 
Yildiz palace on the Bosphorus and the white 
palace on the Spree. The Drag nach Osten, 
the on-sweep to the East, led Germany into a 
compact with Turkey. William would stand 
by Abdul in Crete if Abdul would grant him 
the right to build a railway across his domin- 
ions to the Persian gulf. Abdul Hamid con- 
sented. He gave the Emperor a royal conces- 
sion. He gave him permission to build a rail- 
way from Hadir Pasha on the Asiatic side of 
the Bosphorus, through Anatolia, over the 
Taurus mountains to Adana and Aleppo; 
thence through southern Kurdistan to Nineveh 
on the Tigris River ; thence along the historic 
river to Bagdad. The line was then to con- 
tinue south via Babylon (mark that! via Baby- 



THE KINGDOM OF COMMERCE 359 

Ion), Kerbela and Bosra to Koweit on the 
Persian gulf. 

The German and Austrian railways are 
practically one. Travelers can go now from 
Hamburg to Constantinople and breathe Ger- 
man air, hear German speech, and be conducted 
by German officials all the way. On the Asi- 
atic side work has been progressing rapidly, 
bridges have been built, grades made, stations 
erected and tracks laid. Steadily the road, 
itself German territory, with conceded German 
territory for a wide distance on either side, has 
been pushing the flashing steel towards Baby- 
lon and all the productive wealth of the Tigris 
and Euphratean valleys. Steadily the Ger- 
man on-sweep has been echoing on its way 
to the East, and the ring of every German 
car wheel on the fresh-laid tracks has been 
echoing the name of Babylon, and singing in 
the ears of the German Emperor the song of 
commercial dominion, the kaisereich of the 
world. 

That railroad meant Berlin transferred to 
Babylon ; it meant a Berlin-Babylon. 

But England was following the trail ; every 
blow that drove a spike in the crossties struck 
a blow against the back door of India, gave 
warning that the Mediterranean would no 
longer be a British lake, and seemed to 
prophesy of rusted locks and crumbling walls 
on the Suez Canal. One day, therefore, Eng- 
land stepped right across the projected road, 



360 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

made a treaty with an insignificant kaliph of 
an insignificant province, and flung her flag 
and her threat across the prophetic and cov- 
eted route to the East. Germany's Dread- 
naughts had not then grown high enough to 
loom in English vision, and Germany, as such, 
for a while came to a halt. But the road is 
ordained by God and nature. Babylon is the 
magnet, and Babylon calls. At this present 
moment a company of American capitalists, 
among them the most representative financiers 
of America, are about to invest one hundred 
millions of dollars in railway construction 
through Asiatic Turkey for the express pur- 
pose of exploiting the rich mineral and oil 
fields of Kurdistan and the Tigris and Eu- 
phrates valleys. A section of the road will 
run from Sivas, in the province of Sivas, south 
and west to the Mediterranean at the Gulf of 
Iskanaeroon, tapping the rich export city of 
Aleppo on the way. A sea terminal will be 
built at Suediah, about ninety miles from 
Aleppo. At Sivas connection will be made 
with a branch going to the Black Sea. Con- 
cessions from the Turkish government cover 
some twelve hundred miles. The concession 
calls for rapid construction, and the line will 
be swiftly pushed towards Babylon. In addi- 
tion, there is this startling fact that the great 
English engineer who built the Assouam dam 
in Egypt, now changing the face and the cli- 
mate of that country, has been called to make 



THE KINGDOM OF COMMERCE 361 

surveys in the Euphratean valley and about 
Babylon, and has been authorized to sketch 
out the plans and begin the initial work of a 
colossal scheme of irrigation which shall re- 
peat on a gigantic scale the canal system of 
ancient days. English capital is flowing Baby- 
lonward. All the nations of the earth are be- 
ginning to find themselves under the spell. 

The nations are converging towards Baby- 
lon. 

The Western nations in their on-rush to the 
East, the Eastern nations in their on-rush to 
the West. 

Babylon is the predestined and fatalistic 
center. 

The ephah is being carried to the land of 
Shinar. 

The stork-winged women are drawing near 
to the ordained base that they may set it up 
and establish it thereon. 

Commerce is becoming a universal kingdom. 

The nations are taking their place in the 
kingdom. 

The sceptre is going to Babylon. 

The sceptre is capital, and capital is on the 
move to Babylon. 

Babylon ! if we had ears to hear it — that is 
the supreme word now on the lips of prophecy. 

Not Jerusalem, but Babylon. 

And all this is a sign plain enough to be 
read by him who runs. 



362 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

It is a sign that the Coming of the Lord 
draweth nigh. 

Look at it! 

Before the Appearing of Christ in glory the 
kingdom of Antichrist will be set up. Before 
Antichrist's kingdom reaches the full, com- 
merce must form itself into a world power — 
a kingdom — the nations partners therein. Be- 
fore Jerusalem is revealed as the city of the 
Great King, the false Christ must be enthroned 
at Babylon. 

Now look closer! 

Before Christ appears in glory he must 
secretly, and without warning, snatch away 
his church from the earth to meet himself in 
heaven. 

If, then, the signs of the times indicate that 
the day of Babylon is at hand, and, conse- 
quently, the day of Antichrist; if the day of 
Antichrist precedes the Appearing of Christ, 
and the secret rapture of the church precedes 
the revelation of Antichrist, then how tremen- 
dously do these startling signs, now on the 
horizon, which speak of the building up of 
Babylon, the throne of Antichrist, bear witness 
that, as Christians, we stand on the quivering 
threshold of the imminent Coming of the 
Lord. How authoritatively do these signs bid 
us to see to it that our lamps are trimmed and 
burning, and that we have oil in the vessels 
as well as in the lamps. How warningly does 
the Master's rebuke to the professedly relig- 



THE KINGDOM OF COMMERCE 363 

ious people of his day, "ye can discern the 
face of the sky; but can ye not discern the 
signs of the times ?" come to us ; and how im- 
pressively, as never before, sound the words 
of his exhortation: 

"Watch ye therefore ; for ye know not when 
the master of the house cometh, at even, or 
at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the 
morning ; 

Lest coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. 

And what I say unto you [to the disciples 
of that hour], I say unto all [the church of 
this hour], watch/' — Mark 13: 34-37, 



THE SCARLET WOMAN 

OR 

The Revival of Romanism 

''So he carried me away in the spirit into the 
wilderness. And I saw a woman sit upon a 
scarlet colored beast, full of names of blas- 
phemy, having seven heads and ten horns. 

"And the woman was arrayed in purple and 
scarlet color, and decked with gold and pre- 
cious stones, and pearls, having a golden cup 
in her hand full of abominations and filthiness 
of her fornication : 

"And upon her forehead was a name writ- 
ten, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, 
THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND 
ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. 

"And I saw the woman drunken with the 
blood of the saints, and with the blood of the 
martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her I 
wondered with great admiration. * * * And 
the woman which thou sawest is that great 
city which reigneth over the kings of the 
earth."— Revelation 17: 1-6, 18. 

A woman in scripture is a symbol of the 
church. 

The church, under the figure of a woman, 
is first espoused, and then presented, as a 



THE SCARLET WOMAN 365 

chaste virgin to Christ. "I have espoused you 
to one husband, that I may present you as a 
chaste virgin to Christ" — II. Corinthians, 
11:12. 

What is written to the Corinthian church is 
written to "all that in every place call upon the 
name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and 
ours." — I. Corinthians 1 :2. 

The announcement of the virginal character 
of the Corinthian church in its standing be- 
fore God, is an affirmation as to the standing 
of the church in "every place," necessarily in 
all time, and, therefore, of the church every- 
where, and in our time. 

It is a symbol of the church universal. 

The woman is the church. 

The church is also symbolized by a city. 

"And there came unto me one of the seven 
angels which had the seven vials full of the 
seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, 
Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the 
Lamb's wife. 

"And he carried me away in the spirit to a 
great and high mountain, and shewed me that 
great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out 
of heaven from God." — Revelation 21 :9, 10. 

The Lamb is our Lord Jesus Christ. 

The bride, the Lamb's wife, when espoused 
and presented to him, must have been a chaste 
virgin. The chaste virgin espoused and pre- 
sented by Paul to Christ, is the church. As 
the holy city is the bride of Christ, his wife 



366 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

and, in the nature of the case, must have been 
espoused and presented to him as a chaste vir- 
gin, and the chaste virgin when so espoused 
and presented becomes a bride, a wife, then 
the holy city, the bride, the Lamb's wife, the 
wife of Christ, is a symbol of the church. A 
chaste virgin, a bride, a wife, is a woman ; and 
as the city is the symbol of a wife, then the 
city is the symbol of a woman. As the woman 
is the symbol of the church, and the church is 
symbolized by a city, then the woman is, also, 
a symbol of the city. The woman is a symbol 
of the city, the city is a symbol of the woman, 
and both the woman and the city, symbols of 
the church; and thus, whether it be a woman 
or a city, the one identifies the other. 

But it is evident that while the woman is 
exclusively a symbol, and not a real woman, 
the city is both a symbol and an actual city. 

The city is a symbol. 

The city is the symbol of a woman, and as a 
woman is an organized body, and is the sym- 
bol of the church, then the city is the sym- 
bol of the church as an organized body, a 
polity, a system. 

The city is actual. 

A city consists of people and the place in 
which people dwell. 

The church as an organized body, a polity, a 
system, consists of people and, as such, must 
have a place to dwell. When, therefore, the 
Apostle John in vision sees the holy city as 



THE SCARLET WOMAN 367 

the bride, the Lamb's wife, he sees that city 
both as the people and the place in which they 
dwell ; and the name of the city includes them 
both. Just as New York signifies the people 
and the city in which they dwell, so the holy 
city, the New Jerusalem, signifies the church 
as a polity, a system, a body of people, and the 
real and actual place, the real and actual city 
in which, as real and actual people, they shall 
dwell, and from whence they shall shine forth 
as the glorified bride of Christ, the triumphant 
wife of the Lamb. 

In the scripture quoted at the head of this 
article we have the picture of a woman, and 
this woman declared to be a city. 

What is true of the woman who is the 
Lamb's bride, who is also a city, is equally true 
of this woman who is called a city. 

The woman is exclusively a symbol, she is 
not a real woman ; the city is both symbolic and 
actual. 

By the preceding evidence of symbolry this 
scarlet-clad woman and the city, where of ne- 
cessity she must be centralized, where she must 
dwell, and from which she must be manifested 
in her power, both represent a church. 

But this woman and this city stand in ter- 
rific contrast to the woman and city which set 
forth the church of Christ. 

They contrast and contradict each other. 

The church is represented by a chaste virgin. 



368 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

This woman is a bedizened harlot, and is 
called in plain speech, "the whore. " 

The church is espoused to one husband. 

This woman holds promiscuous commerce 
with the kings of the earth. 

The church is the mystery of godliness. 

This woman is "MYSTERY, BABYLON." 

The church is called "the pillar and ground 
of the truth." 

This woman is called "Babylon," signifies 
"confusion," and recalls an unfinished tower. 

The church offers the cup of salvation and 
stands for holiness. 

This woman holds in her hand a golden cup 
full of abominations and filthiness. 

The church is the mother of the saints. 

This woman is "THE MOTHER OF 
HARLOTS." 

The church is the bride of Christ. 

This woman, by the law of symbolry, is a 
professed church of Christ, and therefore a 
would-be bride of Christ ; but, as she is a har- 
lot, she cannot be the true bride of Christ, she 
cannot be the true church of Christ. If she is 
not the true church of Christ but a corrupt and 
corrupting harlot, then she is a false and cor- 
rupt church professing the name of Christ. 

The identity of this false and corrupt 
church is not far to seek. 

She is called a city, a city that "reigneth 
over the kings of the earth." 

A city that reigns over the kings of the 



THE SCARLET WOMAN 369 

earth is a universal city. A universal city is a 
catholic city. As this universal-catholic city 
is, also, symbolically, a woman, and this woman 
a professed church, then this woman is a uni- 
versal, a catholic church. 

This universal, this catholic church, is repre- 
sented as exceedingly rich in gold, in precious 
stones and pearls. 

The distinctive color of the woman is scar- 
let 

She has not only committed fornication her- 
self, but has made the inhabitants drunk with 
the wine of her fornication. Fornication in the 
book of the Revelation signifies idolatry, and 
idolatry is — image worship. 

This woman, therefore, is a church whose 
official and distinguishing color is scarlet. 
Just as our schools, colleges and universities, 
have their colors, so this church has hers — 
and her color is scarlet. 

This woman is a church which practises, 
and has taught the people of the earth to prac- 
tise, idolatry, to engage in the worship of im- 
ages. 

This scarlet-clad woman is drunken with 
the blood of saints, and with the blood of the 
martyrs of Jesus. 

It is the picture of a universal, a catholic, 
church, in the name of Christ, causing the mar- 
tyrdom of the followers of Christ, and revelling 
in their blood till she has become frenzied and 
drunken by it. This woman not only repre- 



370 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

sents a church, but the city in which it dwells 
and is capitalized, the center and manifestation 
of its glory. Just as much as the New Jerusa- 
lem represents not only the church, but the 
central place where she is to reveal her glory, 
so this woman represents the actual city of 
her own abode. 

The reality and identity of the city are set 
before us with indelible marks. The Apostle 
John says it is "that great city, which reigneth 
over the kings of the earth." 

There was but one city in John's day which 
reigned over the kings of the earth, and that 
city was ROME. 

That the city was Rome is corroborated 
topographically. We are told that the woman 
is seated on seven mountains. 

"The seven heads (that is, of the beast) are 
seven mountains. And there are (they are) 
seven kings." Revelation. 17 :9, 10. 

The heads are symbolic, but they set forth 
two real things, mountains and kings. If the 
kings are real, equally so are the mountains; 
the mountains indicate the place where the 
kings rule. The location of the kings, the lo- 
cation of the woman and, therefore, the lo- 
cation of the city, was on seven mountains. 

The Rome of Saint John's day, the Rome of 
our day, is seated on seven hills, and these hills 
are definitely called mountains ; but the city is 
known in the pages of every history as "the 
seven-hilled city." 



THE SCARLET WOMAN 371 

The city, then, which the woman symbolizes 
is Rome ; and as the woman is also the symbol 
of a church, then you have a church in the city 
of Rome, a church which, like the city, is uni- 
versal and catholic in its rule. A church in the 
city of Rome is a Roman church; a catholic 
church in Rome is, therefore, a Roman Catho- 
lic Church. And here you have the riddle read, 
the symbol told, the identity disclosed. The 
woman foreseen and described by the Spirit 
of God in John is, THE ROMAN CATHO- 
LIC CHURCH. 

As the name of the woman is Babylon, and 
the woman is, symbolically, the city, the name 
of the city must, also, be Babylon ; but, as the 
city is actual Rome and not the real city of 
Babylon, then the name Babylon is given to it, 
as to the woman, simply to set forth the moral 
character of both. 

In Revelation, 11:18., Jerusalem is called 
Sodom and Egypt, so called to mark its moral 
and spiritual degeneration. This woman and 
city likewise go by the name of Babylon to set 
forth the turpitude, the uncleanness and the 
abomination, both of the city and the system. 

The Roman Catholic Church is called Baby- 
lon from God's point of view; from God's 
point of view it is the mystery of abomination. 

Go to that city of the seven hills, where every 
hill is called a "mount," and you will find that 
from thence the Roman Catholic Church rules 
over nations, peoples, kindreds and tongues, a 



372 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

universal rule, counting its subjects by the 
hundreds of millions, and is thus in deed and 
in very fact a universal church, an actual 
kingdom over which one man as Pope is head 
supreme. 

Take up history, and you will find that it has 
reigned over the kings of the earth and made 
them its willing slaves, holding over them the 
terrors of excommunication, paralyzing the 
hands that held the sceptre, and forcing the 
onetime proudest emperor of the world to stand 
shivering on a winter's day in his penitential 
shirt at a papal palace door, while the exalted 
pontiff within turned indifferently away. Ex- 
amine, and you will find that this church to- 
day is rich in gold, in silver, and in precious 
stones, its buildings storehouses of the world's 
most coveted wealth. 

Visit the "treasuries," fittingly so called, in 
her great cathedrals, Notre Dame at Paris, 
the statue-pointed cathedral at Milan, Saint 
Peter's at Rome, and you will find gold, sil- 
ver, pearls, and all precious things. You will 
find them in mitres and croziers, in chasubles 
and patens, in cups, in crystals and vestments, 
as gifts from kings, from emperors and 
queens; offerings from the richest of earth, 
wealth enough to make even kings envy. 

Look at this church filled with gold, with 
silver and precious stones, and you will find 
that its official color is scarlet, scarlet in the 
hat of its cardinals, scarlet in the robes of its 



THE SCARLET WOMAN 373 

pontiff and priests, scarlet everywhere — a 
scarlet colored church. 

Go into its wonderful buildings, some of 
them monuments of the mightiest architectu- 
ral genius of the world; visit them, and you 
will find them full of images, images of the 
virgin mother, images of the saints. 

Stand inside Saint Peter's on a festal day. 

The vast building sweeps upward through 
mighty pillar and colossal arch to the su- 
blime, impending dome. On every side are 
chapels, in themselves monster buildings, vast 
churches. There is the exalted altar, the 
countless lights, the smoking incense, the 
chanting choirs, the scarlet robed priests, the 
voice of intonation, prayer and confession, 
the echoing ora pro nobis, and everywhere 
kneeling devotees, bowing down to mar- 
ble images, doing penance and lifting up 
petitions before their lifeless faces. There 
are churches specially devoted to the wor- 
ship of the virgin, her images are covered 
with gold and silver tributes. In one church 
the image is piled about with crutches and 
almost hidden under the offerings of those 
who believe themselves to have been healed 
or blessed by her interposition and interces- 
sion. Before that stony figure, men and 
women and little children kneel in rapt adora- 
tion. 

It is idolatry — pure and simple. 

Cast your eyes over the past centuries and 



374 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

you will come upon an era when the rule of 
this church was so supreme; when she so 
clutched the throat of the nations with her al- 
most omnipotent hand; so stifled all learning 
and spiritual knowledge, that by common con- 
sent that age has been called the dark age, 
the midnight of the world's moral, intellec- 
tual and spiritual life. So dark and cruel 
was this time, so full of idolatry, that the 
Arab, as he swept a victor into Europe, paused 
at the doors of Catholic churches, then turned 
and fled as though he were in that very tem- 
ple of heathen idolatry from which his reli- 
gion bade him to flee. And it is of this time 
and this Arab that Mrs. Browning sings when 
she says that knowledge was at last "thrust 
into the eye of Europe on the point of a 
Paynim's spear." 

Read history, not the history written by 
one author, but by all, and in their pages you 
will learn how men and women were led into 
torture chambers or buried in dismal dun- 
geons. You will read how beautiful women 
were stripped before black masked judges 
gloating over unprotected shame, and were 
led away to racks and stretched till their deli- 
cate limbs were snapped and their tender 
flesh torn into shreds. You will read 
how men and women were broken on the 
wheel, or flayed alive, their eyes put out, their 
tongues plucked forth by the roots, their feet 
placed in boots filled with boiling oil, bags 



THE SCARLET WOMAN 375 

thrust down their throats and then filled with 
water till they agonized with slow and calcu- 
lated strangulation, legs placed between 
boards and the boards driven together by 
wedges till the bones were crushed little by 
little to a pulp, nails wrenched from the 
fingers, bodies sawn asunder as you might saw 
a log in two, members of the body cut off one 
at a time, now a hand, then an arm, first one 
leg, then another, till the victim was a mere 
quivering, though still living, trunk; men and 
women taken to the stake and burned alive, 
the wood dampened, or green wood used, that 
the fire might burn slowly and the agony and 
torture of the victim be lengthened. Try and 
count, if you can, the men and women driven 
from their homes, their houses burned, their 
property confiscated, and themselves hunted 
on the mountains and pursued through the 
valleys like beasts of prey. 

Look at the blood flowing like water from 
the martyred bodies of men and women, 
whose only crime was that they loved the 
Lord Jesus Christ, believed in His finished re- 
demption on the cross, refused to buy their 
salvation by penance or good works, rejected 
the intercession of a human priest, or a 
woman, no matter how good, claimed the 
Lord Jesus Christ as their sin-bearer and 
Saviour at the right hand of the Father, 
owned Him as their only high-priest and in- 
tercessor and would not, even at the price 



376 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

of their own life, deny Him who died for 
them and rose again. And remember, while 
you read, that these martyrs were led to agony 
and to death by the authority and express 
command of the Roman Catholic Church; a 
church that did all this in the name of that 
most fiendish of all inventions, the "Holy In- 
quisition"; a church whose Pope at so late a 
date as the massacre of Saint Bartholomew's 
caused a special celebration to be sung in all 
the churches as a thanksgiving to God that the 
enemies of Romanism had been thus cruelly 
and cowardly slain, stabbed in their beds, 
thrown from the windows of upper stories into 
stone courts below, or stricken from behind as 
they walked in the streets ; a massacre so horri- 
ble, so revolting in all its details, that, even at 
this hour, when you pass by the gilded gates in 
front of the Louvre at Paris, it is impossible 
not to recall the picture of the piled up bodies 
of the murdered Huguenots flung in the gut- 
ter there and weltering in th^ir own blood; it 
is impossible not to lift the eyes, involuntarily, 
and look at that Catholic church of Auxerrois 
just across the way, from whose tower the 
tocsin, which was to give the signal for the 
awful night of blood, sounded forth its brazen 
knell of doom. Bring all this to mind as you 
read, and you will recognize the perfect ac- 
curacy of the Spirit's description when he says 
that this scarlet-clad, this universal, this catho- 



THE SCARLET WOMAN 377 

lie church of Rome was drunken with the 
blood of the martyrs of Jesus. 

In the vision the woman is seen to be seat- 
ed upon a seven headed, ten horned, scarlet 
colored beast. 

This scarlet colored beast is identical with 
the fourth beast of Daniel's vision. 

Daniel says: 

"After this I saw in the night visions, and, 
behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, 
and strong exceedingly ; and it had great iron 
teeth; it devoured and brake in pieces, and 
stamped the residue with the feet of it; and 
it was diverse from all the beasts that were 
before it; and it had ten horns/' 

An angel explains the vision to Daniel: 

"Thus he said, the fourth beast shall be the 
fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be 
diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour 
the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and 
break it in pieces. And the ten horns out of 
this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise." 
Daniel, 7:23, 24. 

The first three beasts are identical with the 
three kinds of metal forming part of the image 
which Nebuchadnezzar saw in a dream and 
which Daniel by the wisdom of God inter- 
preted, as recorded in the second chapter of the 
prophecy that bears his name. In that dream 
the image had a head of gold, breast and arms 
of silver, and belly and thighs of brass. 
The golden head, Daniel tells us, represents 



378 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

the Babylonian kingdom. "Thou art/' says 
Daniel, "this head of gold." As the first beast 
in the vision which Daniel records in the sev- 
enth chapter is, also, the first kingdom, and 
is a lion, then the golden head and the lion 
are the equivalent symbols of the first king- 
dom. 

The second beast is a bear, and is equivalent 
to the second kingdom represented by the sil- 
ver breast and arms of the image. This sec- 
ond kingdom comes in after Babylon and, nec- 
essarily, overcomes it, takes it. This kingdom 
is identified for us in the fifth chapter of 
Daniel's prophecy, as it is written : 

"And Darius the Median took the kingdom," 
(that is, the kingdom of Babylon). — Daniel 
5:31. 

The second beast as thus identified is the 
Medo-Persian kingdom. 

The third beast is a winged leopard and 
is equivalent to the third kingdom represented 
in the image by the belly and thighs of brass. 
This brazen-leopard kingdom, in the order of 
succession, is the kingdom which overcomes 
the second, or Medo-Persian kingdom. 

Daniel gives us the name of that third king- 
dom. He has a vision in which he sees a ram 
standing by a river and then pushing its way 
westward till a rough he-goat from the west 
rushes upon him with great fury, overcomes 
him, and tramples him with his feet. Daniel is 
perplexed as to the meaning of the vision till 



THE SCARLET WOMAN 379 

an angel appears and gives the interpretation: 

"And he said, Behold, I will make thee 
know what shall be in the last end of the in- 
dignation: for at the appointed time the end 
shall be. 

"The ram which thou sawest having two 
horns are the kings of Media and Persia. 

"And the rough goat is the king of Grecia." 
—Daniel 8:19-21. 

The first three beasts then are identified by 
the Word of God. 

They are, 

Babylon. 

Medo-Persia. 

Greece. 

The fourth beast is the fourth kingdom and 
is represented in the image by the legs of iron. 
The iron in the image is matched by the iron 
in the teeth of the beast: it had great iron 
teeth. 

Iron then is the symbol and character of 
the fourth beast kingdom. 

What great world kingdom is symbolized by 
iron, is known as the iron kingdom? 

All history answers, every student of history 
knows, the veriest tyro at school knows, every 
lip is ready to speak the name — it is ROME. 

It is of Rome and Rome alone that iron is 
used as the symbol — we speak of the iron le- 
gions of Rome. 

But it is not necessary to go to history to 
identify the fourth beast, to find the name of 



380 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

the fourth kingdom. The New Testament 
answers the question and gives the affirmation. 
The New Testament tells us that Rome was 
the wide ruling world power in the day when 
Christ was born. It was, under God, by the 
edict of a Roman Caesar that the mother of 
Christ came to Bethlehem, where he was to 
be born in fulfillment of Holy Scripture. 

The fourth kingdom then is Rome ; and this 
Rome included all the territory that once com- 
prised Babylon, Medo-Persia and Greece. 
Rome was the legatee and heir of the three 
first kingdoms, and thus by right of succession 
is, as foretold, the fourth kingdom as it is the 
symbolic fourth beast. 

This fourth beast is identical with the beast 
of John's vision, the scarlet-colored beast that 
carries the Babylonian woman. 

This scarlet-colored beast is a composite 
symbol. In it are the elements of a leopard, a 
bear and a lion. 

"And the beast which I saw (the beast de- 
scribed in the 17th chapter) was like unto a 
leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a 
bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion." — 
Revelation 13:2. 

The leopard has been seen to be the third 
beast, and, therefore, the third kingdom, and 
has been shown by Daniel in the eighth chapter 
of his prophecy to be one with the he-goat 
which overcame the ram; in other words the 
kingdom of Greece. 



THE SCARLET WOMAN 381 

The bear has been identified and named, 
both by symbol and by Daniel's actual state- 
ment, as the Medo-Persian kingdom. 

The lion is the first symbolic beast in Dan- 
iel's vision, is equivalent to the golden head of 
the image, and is Babylon. 

The fact that the three beasts, the lion, the 
bear, and the leopard, are seen comprised in 
one beast, is the symbolic, but clear statement 
that the beast of John's vision is a fourth 
beast, including the three that preceded it. 
As Daniel's fourth beast is the symbol of 
Rome and includes the three preceding king- 
doms, Babylon, Medo-Persia and Greece, 
then John's beast and the beast of Daniel are 
identical, and both agree in the one testimony 
that this is Rome. 

As the woman who sits upon the beast has 
been not only symbolically, but topographic- 
ally identified as Rome, the fact that the very 
beast upon which she sits is civil and govern- 
mental Rome, becomes the repeated and 
doubly corroborative demonstration that the 
city and system of which the woman is a sym- 
bol — is Rome. 

There is further identification of the two 
beasts in the fact that each, the beast of Dan- 
iel and the beast of John, has ten horns. The 
ten horns in Daniel's vision are ten kings, so 
declared by the angel. The ten horns in 
John's vision are, likewise by an angel, de- 
clared to be ten kings. 



382 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

"And the ten horns which thou sawest are 
ten kings, which have received no kingdom as 
yet; but receive power as kings one hour (at 
the same time) with the beast." — Revelation 
17:12. 

It is to be specially noted that John says 
these kings had not come into power when 
he wrote this vision. 

"Ten kings, which have received no king- 
dom as yet." 

These kings did not exist at any time prior 
to John's day. At no previous time in the 
history of Rome did ten kings simultaneously 
occupy and rule in her territory. At no 
period since John's day does history record 
the simultaneous rule of ten kings within 
the limits of Rome. 

The ten kings are yet future; they are yet 
to come. 

Daniel speaks of an eleventh king who is to 
be the federal head of, and rule over, these 
kings. ^ 

"And another shall rise after them (the 
ten kings) ; and he shall be diverse from the 
first, and he shall subdue three kings." — 
Daniel 7 :24. 

He is the final king, the federated head of 
the ten kings, a king of kings and lord of 
lords. Daniel speaks of him in the ninth 
chapter as "the prince * * * that shall 
come" the Coming Prince of Rome. 

x In John's vision the ten kings agree and 
give their power to the beast. 



THE SCARLET WOMAN 383 

"These have one mind, and shall give their 
power and strength unto the beast." — Revela- 
tion 17:13. 

This is saying, on the basis of the identity 
of the two visions, that the eleventh king is 
distinctively called "the beast." It is the fur- 
ther statement that the seven-headed, ten- 
horned beast bears the same relation to that 
eleventh king that Nebuchadnezzar does to 
the first kingdom; that is, one is put for the 
other. Just as Nebuchadnezzar, the head of 
gold, is put for the kingdom of Babylon, so 
the beast is put for the eleventh king of the 
fourth empire, ruling over the ten kings, or 
the equivalent ten horns, both of John's and 
Daniel's visions, as Prince of Rome and final 
Caesar. 

All this is prophecy clear and distinct of 
the revival of the Roman empire in a new 
form and under a new head. 

>The two legs of the image foretold the first 
division of Rome into two great parts which 
history knows as the empire of the West and 
the empire of the East. 

The ten kings portray the final division of 
the ancient Roman territory and the reorgani- 
zation of the empire itself as a federated union 
under an eleventh king. 

And the scarlet-clad, Babylonian woman is 
seen seated on the back of this revived Roman 
empire. 

It is the prophecy that the Roman Catholic 



384 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

Church will again be carried and supported 
by nations of the Roman earth, and will once 
more rule and reign with temporal power. 

It is the divine forecast of the revival of 
Romanism. 

THIS REVIVAL HAS ALREADY 
BEGUN. 

It began in the hour when the Protestant 
Reformation was at its zenith. Protestantism 
rose up, smote Catholicism and drove it from 
Germany headlong to the Mediterranean. It 
seemed as though it were about to be flung as 
with a millstone about its neck into the 
depths of the sea, when, suddenly, it halted, 
stood still, recovered its strength, shook itself 
free from the hands of its assailants and be- 
gan steadily to return to the lands from 
whence it had been so fiercely expelled. 

Nothing is more impressive than the recov- 
ery of Romanism from what seemed to be its 
death-blow. It reads on the page of history 
like a veritable resurrection of the dead. 

And this resurrection has been followed by 
an immense and ever increasing vitality, by a 
propaganda that extends to every kingdom, 
nation and tongue. Austria is Catholic to the 
core. Germany is filled with devotees of the 
church, and her supporters may be counted 
by the millions. The progress in Protestant 
England is astounding. A year ago all Lon- 
don poured into the streets to see for the 
first time since the Reformation the trium- 



THE SCARLET WOMAN 385 

phant march of a Roman Catholic procession 
extending for miles, while thousands on 
either side of the immense column bowed the 
knee in adoration as the sacred symbols of 
the church were held aloft. Recently, in this 
same London, there has been dedicated with 
imposing ceremonies a stupendous and costly 
cathedral. Everywhere throughout England 
the Romish priest is a power, the chapels and 
churches are filled to overflowing; daily, con- 
verts from the Church of England go over 
to the Church of Rome, and that by easy 
steps, as though the English church itself 
had become a half-way house. The non- 
conformist oath once administered to English 
kings on the day of coronation has been re- 
pealed. The official head of English Protest- 
antism has ceased to protest. Enthusiastic 
Romanists consider the day not far distant 
when England will return officially to the 
faith and be received by Rome as a long 
wandering, but sincerely repentant and be- 
loved daughter of the church. 

In this country Romanism is advancing 
with giant strides. A little over one hundred 
years ago there were only 33 priests and less 
than 50,000 Catholics, scarcely a decent 
church building, one college and no schools. 
To-day there are nearly twenty millions of 
communicants, one cardinal, 14 archbishops, 
77 bishops, 14 church provinces, nearly 20,- 
000 priests, to say nothing of the thousands 



386 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

on thousands of oath-bound nuns, between 
15,000 and 20,000 church buildings, some 
of them models of architecture and of im- 
mense cost of construction. There are 7 
great universities, 80 seminaries, or theologi- 
cal institutions, 213 colleges for boys, over 
700 academies for girls (to which Protest- 
ant mothers send their daughters, and where 
the daughters become converted to Roman- 
ism and furnish the church in turn with Cath- 
olic mothers), and nearly 5,000 private 
schools, each school a protest against 
the public school system of the Nation. 
While the population of the United States has 
increased twenty-five times, the Roman Cath- 
olic population, in a little over a century, has 
increased 320 times, nearly twelve times as 
fast. 

The solidarity of the church is amazing; it 
seems miraculous. 

Out of the fifteen or twenty millions in 
this country, there is not a Catholic, in the 
final analysis, who would be disloyal to the 
church. Whatever his private opinion, in 
the end, he submits to her as the supreme 
authority over his conscience and soul. This 
solidarity extends around the globe. A Cath- 
olic church in one place is a duplicate of a 
Catholic church in every other. What you 
see in New York you will find in China and 
in the isles of the sea. Wherever a Catho- 
lic sees a Romish church and the cross 



THE SCARLET WOMAN 387 

upon its spire, he knows, whatever may be his 
nationality or tongue, in that church he will 
find the same faith, the same worship, which 
was taught him in his native land, at his 
mother's knee, and in the hour of his first 
communion. 

This solidarity finds its significance in con- 
trast to the division, the confusion, and the 
uncertainty of Protestantism. 

In this country Romanism has conquered 
social distinction and an accepted standing. 

Not many years ago and the Catholic 
church was a sort of social pariah, looked 
down upon with disdain, its services rejected, 
and its priests regarded with aversion. There 
was a time when for an American to be a 
Catholic, was sufficient to ostracize him from 
family and friends as though he were a re- 
ligious and social leper. To-day, the Catholic 
finds all doors open, from the hovel to the 
palace. The most exclusive sets welcome the 
priest, invite him to marry their sons and 
daughters and dedicate private chapels in city 
homes or summer villas. Where Romanism 
once stood as the symbol of that which was 
foreign and alien, it is, to-day, represented by 
American families, their names recorded on its 
marriage books, its birth and baptismal regis- 
ters. In no land has the Roman Catholic Church 
more loyal, more devoted, or more liberal 
supporters than those who claim to be Ameri- 
cans and to the manor born. And more 



388 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

startling still is the fact that the Roman Cath- 
olic Church is steadily taking the place of 
the most eloquent defender of the Bible. 
Startling, indeed! The church which has al- 
ways been afraid of the Bible; the church 
which has martyred men and women in cold 
blood for even daring to read it; the church 
which is careful in this day to give only an ex- 
purgated edition for the common laity to read, 
and legislates the most severe penalties against 
the indiscriminate use of the book ; the church 
which has been the actual enemy of the Bible, 
bitter, deadly, inveterate, exercising all its 
hatred against it as the source of Protestant- 
ism, the arsenal of its weapons, and its mighti- 
est stronghold, this ancient antagonist is now 
taking the place of Holy Scripture's most un- 
compromising apologist, rallying to its defence 
its keenest logicians, its most intellectual writ- 
ers, its most brilliant orators. 

And the Roman Catholic Church is coming 
into this place, not only by its own seeking, but 
by reason of the undisguised and wide spread 
infidelity of the Protestant Church. 

Go into so-called, up-to-date Protestant 
churches, listen to some of their most advanced 
thinkers and preachers. You will hear them 
strikingtat the very foundation of Protestanism, 
repudiating the only authority on which it can 
rest — the Word of God — the written Word. 
You will hear them with oracular utterance 
and much-claimed scholarship rejecting the 



THE SCARLET WOMAN 389 

Old Testament, ridiculing its statements and 
demonstrating in modern formula that its per- 
sonages are fictitious, its history worthless, its 
prophecies unfulfilled, its cosmogony, astron- 
omy and geology unscientific, and the laugh- 
ing-stock of the learned. You will hear them 
deny the infallibility of the New Testament, 
prove its human and not divine inspiration, and 
set before you a Christ who was limited in 
knowledge, who was not always sure of his 
mission, was sometimes filled with vacillation, 
who was, nevertheless, a good man, and whose 
death on the cross was simply the tragedy of 
one too gentle for the times, a good man torn 
to pieces at last by "the whirling wheel of the 
world's evil. ,, You will hear them preach the 
all-Fatherhood of God, the sonship of all men, 
both good and bad, scout the idea that man is 
a lost sinner, laugh at the fable of hell and the 
danger of future punishment, and conclude 
with the self-satisfied postulate that the great 
saving force in the earth is the law of evolu- 
tion ; that each man is working out in his own 
way his own problem; that each man is an 
avatar of God; that salvation is the reforma- 
tion of society and the final deliverance of the 
race from the impedimenta of religiousness, 
superstition and ignorance. Science, they de- 
clare, is the true God and civilization is its 
handmaid. In short, in a Protestant pulpit 
and, specially, if that pulpit is occupied by a 
recent graduate of an advanced theological 



390 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

institution, you are liable to hear utterances 
as treasonable to the Word of God and the re- 
vealed mission of Jesus Christ, as ever fell 
from the lips of the most pronounced, most 
blatant, but unconcealed, infidel and enemy of 
the church of God. 

You will listen in vain to hear such utter- 
ances in a Catholic church, be the preacher 
never so learned, never so bright or brilliant. 
On the contrary, and with rare sagacity, con- 
sidering the state of Protestantism, you will 
hear the Catholic pulpits now echoing with ad- 
dresses which exalt the Bible as the Word of 
God, handed over, it is true, to the custody 
and authoritative interpretation of the church 
still, but proclaimed, nevertheless, with in- 
creasing emphasis as the inspired thought of 
the living God. 

Rome is wise enough to seize the strategic 
moment and, at the same time, take advantage 
of the differing opinions, the confusion, and 
the infidelity among Protestants, to draw at- 
tention to the favorite thesis of the church, that 
the Bible can be read and understood only 
when under the strict surveillance and inspired 
interpretation of the church ; and that Protest- 
antism with its undivine hands has wrested the 
scriptures to its own damnation and the dam- 
nation of all who have been led into Protest- 
antism. By this subtle seizure of the oppor- 
tune moment Romanism places itself in the 
forefront, not only as the defender of the 



THE SCARLET WOMAN 391 

Bible, but as its only true, sane, and authorita- 
tive interpreter. 

Not only is the Catholic church taking the 
place of defender of Holy Scripture and seek- 
ing to rescue it from profane hands, it is 
rapidly rising as the bulwark of the family, the 
champion of the home. The Roman Catholic 
Church stands four-square against the growing 
iniquity and excuseless wickedness of divorce. 

The Protestant Church takes no such stand. 
There is no unity in the Protestant Church 
concerning this shame. There are to be found 
Protestant ministers who will, without hesita- 
tion, marry a divorced man, or a divorced wo- 
man, or both. In some Protestant churches 
the representative men and women — men and 
women who are the most liberal supporters of 
the church and foremost in its work — are di- 
vorced people. Condemned as they are by the 
Word of God and the legislative utterances of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, they find in the church 
which professes his name, the church which 
has been "espoused to him as one husband," 
instead of judgment, the place of honor and, 
often, of exalted fellowship. 

Not so in the Catholic church. The priest 
will not marry, baptize or receive into com- 
munion those who are living in open defiance 
of the law and testimony of God. To the 
Roman Catholic Church marriage is a sacra- 
ment, is inviolable, and cannot be annulled by 
the laws or acts of man. The divorced man or 



392 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

woman may enter a Protestant church and find 
shelter there. The Roman church shuts its 
doors and stands like an insurmountable bar- 
rier against the inflood of the tide that would 
shipwreck the home and destroy the sacred- 
ness of such holy titles as husband and wife, 
father and mother. 

i - Unified in faith, defending the Bible, stand- 
ing against divorce, loyally supported by lib- 
eral contributions, the poor being taught to 
give in the same proportion as the rich, count- 
ing among its membership some of the most 
representative families of America, with 
stately buildings, schools, colleges and univer- 
sities, numbering its followers by millions, 
those millions increased by every steamship 
that lands its load of emigrants on our shores, 
and guided by a wisdom, a genius that makes 
her ready to meet each new demand that will 
strengthen her cause, absolutely cosmopolitan 
— Italian in Italy, Spanish in Spain, English in 
England, Irish in Ireland and, pre-eminently, 
American in America, she is steadily and mar- 
vellously moving on. 

Nor is this advance confined alone to re- 
ligious lines. 

Nay, the march is far away beyond that! 
The Roman Catholic Church in this country 
is an immense political organization, holds the 
balance of voting power, on the eve of a presi- 
dential election defeated the candidate whom 
all the world expected to be successful, and 



THE SCARLET WOMAN 393 

can, if she will, name the next man who shall 
sit in the presidential chair. 

In the year 1902, the mission of the present 
incumbent of the White House to the Vatican 
was a political one. He was to all intents and 
purposes accredited from these United States 
as Ambassador to the Pope of Rome. He had 
instructions from the Secretary of State which 
said, "any negotiations which you may desire 
on the part of the officers of the civil court or 
of military officers to enable you to perform 
your negotiation with the Vatican will be af- 
forded ;" and this high Commissioner from the 
United States acted and spoke in Rome as the 
special envoy of the great American Republic 
to the Catholic Church. He was received and 
accepted by the ambassadors to the Pope as 
one of themselves; and in a remarkable cere- 
mony at Saint Peter's, he was invited as an 
ambassador to the Roman Catholic Church, 
and took his place in the diplomatic tribune. 
Besides all that, an agreement was entered 
into between the Pope and himself concerning 
the Catholic Church in the Philippines and, al- 
though the contract failed, yet^ as a recent 
writer, himself a Catholic, has said, "This 
does not destroy the fact that Washington was 
ready to enter into a regular treaty with the 
Pope, similar to those existing between the 
Vatican and the leading Catholic governments 
of the world." 

To-day, Romanism is politically, as well as 



394 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

religiously, entrenched in the great cities of 
our land and, from its university center at 
Washington, exercises its mysterious and far- 
reaching power. Romanists confidently expect 
the time to arrive when the whole land will be 
under its political control ; when the machinery 
of office and legislation will be in the power 
of the church and when, with her astounding 
increase of numbers, she will be the religious 
and political dictator of the new world. 

The grasp of Rome is on the sceptre of tem- 
poral power. It is true, France has separated 
her from the State and, for a time, refuses to 
carry her ; it is true, the Vatican and the Quiri- 
nal are at odds in Italy, and the Pope still 
styles himself "prisoner" in Rome; it is true 
that Spain is in the throes of an issue whether 
the civil or the religious power shall dominate. 
But, while the separation has taken place in 
France, that "eldest daughter of the church/' 
a sentiment has been aroused and a partizan- 
ship for Rome emphasized such as has not been 
seen since the days when Versailles and the 
Vatican were in intimate touch. Italy is loyal 
to the king, proud of the day when Garibaldi 
broke through the walls of the "holy" city and 
gave her the right of civic liberty; but Italy 
is Catholic even to frenzy, and no matter how 
many millions may be spent on the new capi- 
tal, or how far Paganism may be glorified in 
the re-opening of the Appian Way, to the Ital- 
ian, the dome of Saint Peter's still overtops 



THE SCARLET WOMAN 395 

the Pantheon and the palace of the king. Spain 
may advance sufficiently out of the gloom of 
candle-light into the glare of the electric light ; 
she may allow the breath of Twentieth Cen- 
tury toleration to breathe through her streets, 
permitting Protestants to write the name of 
their church on the walls of their buildings; 
she may, in an issue, exalt the civil authority 
into its due place, but the born Catholic in 
Spain looks upon Spain as the kingdom of 
Jesus Christ and blindly and fanatically, even 
unto death, believes that in the Roman Church 
Jesus Christ is alone to be found ; and that, in 
final terms, Spain and the kingdom of the Ro- 
man Church are one. Should the issue for 
one moment depart from the civil and become 
religious, the government would be overthrown 
in a night and Alphonse and his English queen 
repudiated as foes to the faith. 

It is true that Germany has protested against 
the last encyclical, but this very protest is a 
witness that the Germany of to-day is not the 
Germany of Luther, nor the days of the Great 
Elector ; that she does no more than protest is 
a witness that the political power of Rome has 
been felt upon the banks of the Spree, and 
that the Protestant Emperor of the birth land 
of Protestantism is satisfied to go no further 
than the limits of diplomacy permit. And it is 
because of this that Rome with her soft tread 
and more than mortal wisdom has accepted 
the protest, explained the encyclical, and given 



396 



THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 



orders that it shall not be read in German 
churches. It is the answer, not of a trembling 
suppliant, but of a church that feels itself suf- 
ficiently strong in the headquarters of the 
Reformation to meet diplomacy with diplo- 
macy. 

Rome may be turned back for a moment, for 
a season be deflected from her course, but her 
course is onward. Those who hail the present 
separation of church and state in Europe as a 
witness of the waning power of the church as 
a political factor, have only to reflect that sep- 
aration in this country is more radical, more 
absolute, than it is, or ever can be, in Europe ; 
and that in this country, in spite of the separ- 
ation, the church increases in population, adds 
to her wealth, and is to-day the mightiest force 
at the polls ; it is only necessary to contemplate 
the results of separation here, to see that sep- 
aration in Europe is no evidence of the dimin- 
ution of her strength, but is, really, in the 
sympathy and partizanship which it is sure to 
arouse, one of the guarantees of her final ascen- 
sion to sovereignty and power. 

While Protestantism is at war with itself — 
is full of treason to Holy Scripture, and is 
breaking up into new and more absurd de- 
nominational factions every day — Rome, sys- 
tematically, unrelentingly, and yet smoothly, 
secretly, and without noise, is marching to her 
ordained place. 

Protestantism lifts up the banner of guess, 



THE SCARLET WOMAN 397 

of doubt, of dethroned authority, and stands 
insistently for organized uncertainty. 

Rome speaks with certainty, with authority 
and relentless fixity. 

Protestantism seeks favor of the unbeliev- 
ing world, apologizes for her creeds, and would 
establish herself by denying them. 

Romanism hurls anathema at the unbeliever, 
magnifies her office, and claims to be wholly 
divine. 

Protestantism builds schools, and endows 
universities, that she may teach the rising gen- 
eration to reckon dxmbt as the beginning of 
wisdom, and unbelief as the sign-patent of 
knowledge. 

Romanism spends her wealth in establishing 
schools and institutions of learning that she 
may lay hold of the rising youth and teach 
them that the church is the symbol of God, 
and that the highest wisdom is to obey her 
commands. 

Protestantism, in its reaction from ritualism, 
has turned the church into a lecture room and 
destroyed the feeling of reverence. 

Romanism sanctifies her buildings and cre- 
ates a feeling of awe within the shadow of her 
churches. 

The Protestant enters his church as one 
might enter a concert room or a hall of de- 
bate. 

The Romanist bows on the threshold of his 
church as the sanctuary of God. 



398 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

Protestantism has stepped down on to the 
high road of the natural and the common- 
place. 

Romanism more and more exalts itself into 
the realm of the supernatural. 

Protestantism prides itself on the denial of 
miracles. 

Romanism claims to work them. 

Protestantism carries with it the impression 
of newness and divisibility. 

Romanism is covered with the dust of cen- 
turies, has in it the echo of the distant ages, 
and is superior to schism. 

As the present age goes on, multitudes will 
turn away from the interrogation points of 
Protestantism, to the unqualified assertion and 
assurance of Romanism, to her gorgeous rit- 
ual, her spectacular worship, the glamour of 
her two thousand years of unbroken history, 
and the fact that, on the edge of eternity, she 
offers to take the whole responsibility of a 
human being, prepare him for the hour and 
the article of death, go with him into the 
shadows, keep with him by her power and in- 
fluence in the unseen world, nor quit him till 
she has delivered him from danger, and se- 
cured him, as she claims, in the mercy of God. 

Some years ago, while on an ocean trip I 
became acquainted with a versatile Irishman, 
a graduate of Dublin university, and a world- 
wide traveler. He had eaten rice with the 
Chinese, tasted salt with the Arabs of the 



THE SCARLET WOMAN 399 

desert, clinked his glass in the offices of the 
Qai d'Orsay, was able to express his sugges- 
tive thoughts in the fluency of some half dozen 
languages beside his own, and was as much at 
home in one as in another. He was, when I 
met him, in the employ of the British govern- 
ment, and had been a commissioner to this 
country. He was witty, at times full of 
pathos, mercurial and, frequently, overflowing 
with wordy heat. He was a scholar. He was 
abreast of the times. He claimed to be an 
agnostic. His speech was spiced with satire 
against the Christian religion. He said noth- 
ing coarse, but his assaults were keen, far- 
reaching and, often, cut me to the heart. One 
night as we drew near to the Irish coast, we 
sat together in the aft of the ship where we 
could see the phosphorescent glow in the 
waves. He was in a reflective mood. He 
spoke of the brevity and the uncertainty of 
life and, then, of the eternity beyond. Sud- 
denly he turned to me and said, calling me by 
name, "When I die, I am going to die a good 
Catholic. I am going to have mass said for 
my soul. I have made provision for that." 
Seeing my amazement and that I was, evi- 
dently, puzzled to know whether he was seek- 
ing to outdo himself in travesty, he said, earn- 
estly, "Do not misunderstand me ; I am an un- 
believer, but I am superstitious. I have been 
brought up a Catholic. As I look about me in 
the world, the Church is the only thing which 



400 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

has seemed to stand in the midst of changing 
mentality and the reversal of human knowl- 
edge. To stand unmoved in the swirl of such 
conditions counts for something. The Church 
comes with an audacious claim of authority 
and the power of completeness. She leaves 
nothing for me to do. She takes all the re- 
sponsibility for my soul — for the past and the 
future. You may call it what you please, but 
I tell you, her position counts in the end, and 
I am going to give my soul, if I have one, over 
into her hands. She is the only thing that 
offers certainty when you are about to leave 
this world." 

It was pitiful, but it was, and is, an illustra- 
tion of how thousands feel, and how that feel- 
ing is likely to grow in the increasing infi- 
delity and guess of Protestantism, in its total 
surrender of all final authority, and in its 
suicidal determination to wash its hands of the 
soul's future. 

It is this appeal to the latent superstition in 
man, this splendid and uncompromising asser- 
tion, this unfaltering claim of authority, this 
unity of faith, together with the most perfect 
organization on earth, and the unalterable pur- 
pose to be supreme in the world, that will give 
the Catholic Church her underhold in the final 
religious and political struggle of the age. 

Everything is making for that hour when 
Rome, once more seated on the back of human 
government, will rule the earth. 



THE SCARLET WOMAN 401 

This revival of Rome in our day is a sign 
of the times. 

The Word of God has made it plain that be- 
fore the Roman Catholic Church reaches its 
climax, the Lord will come secretly into the 
air and call up to himself the true church, 
made up of individuals out of every professed 
church of Christ, even out of Romanism (for, 
undoubtedly, there are thousands in Romanism 
who, while in the darkness and error of that 
corrupt and corrupting system, have yet been 
quickened by the Spirit of God and, in spite of 
the dead weight laid upon them by priest- 
craft, still see the Son of God as their final 
Saviour and Lord). This translation of the 
true church will allow all the constituent ele- 
ments of an unregenerate Protestantism to 
coalesce with, and find shelter in, that Ro- 
manism that will now be minus its regenerate 
membership, and wholly without God. It is 
this Romanism that will expand into the full 
outlines of the scarlet clad, Babylonian wo- 
man. Then will she ally herself entirely with 
the unseen world of the dead, with unclean 
spirits, and all the occult force which Satan 
will uncover, as he leads her to become, for a 
time, the wanton bride of that false Christ who 
shall be hailed by an applauding world as the 
"Coming Man." Then will the inhering 
demonism and paganism of Rome come forth 
in all its iniquity and sin, in all its uncleanness 
and shame. It will be as when the vail is 



402 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

withdrawn from an ulcer, from a concealed 
and festering corruption ; it will be as the open- 
ing of a hidden pit full of the dank foulness 
of decayed matter; it will be the turning into 
oxydized blackness of that which once passed 
for silver and gold ; it will be the full and final 
revelation of a counterfeit that circulated often 
as current coin of the infinite realm — and be- 
came the medium of exchange whereby souls 
were deceived and multitudes merchandized to 
perdition. Then in the height of her wholly 
Satanized iniquity she will be supreme, mani- 
festing that power which, when John saw it 
in vision, extorted from him the startling 
phrase — "When I saw her I wondered with 
great admiration;" or, literally, "I wondered 
with great wonder." 

But for a space only shall she continue thus 
— her doom is written. Antichrist himself 
will turn upon her and trample her beneath 
the feet of his ten kings. Throughout his do- 
minion they will turn upon her, rend her, burn 
her with fire, abolish her cult and, in her place, 
set up the one object to which all the world 
will turn in that devil-mad hour — to Antichrist 
himself, as it is written: "And the ten horns 
which thou sawest upon the beast [the ten 
kings of v:12] these shall hate the whore, and 
shall make her desolate and naked, and shall 
eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. For God 
hath put in their hearts to fulfill his will, and 
to agree, and give their kingdom unto the 



THE SCARLET WOMAN 403 

beast, until the words of God shall be ful- 
filled."— Revelation 17:16, 17. 

And again, as it is written: 

"And all that dwell upon the earth shall 
worship him [the beast, Antichrist], whose 
names are not written in the book of life of 
the Lamb slain from the foundation of the 
world.'— Revelation 13 :8. 

The revival of Romanism is, then, a sign of 
the times. It is a sign that the world is has- 
tening on to its Roman and Antichristian cli- 
max ; and, by just so much, it is an increased 
and solemn warning that at any moment the 
Lord may descend in his unheralded secrecy, 
and snatch away from earth to himself all who 
are truly his. It is the solemn warning that, 
at any moment, those who have made a mere 
profession of his name; who have no real 
knowledge of him in the heart; who, in spite 
of the profession they make, still walk accord- 
ing to "the course of this world/' will be left 
behind to the judgments of the Great Tribula- 
tion, and the righteous wrath of a long suf- 
fering God. 

Well, indeed, may we heed the admonition 
of the Apostle Peter: "Wherefore the rather, 
brethren, give diligence to make your calling 
and election sure." — 2 Peter 1 :10. 

It is fitting that we should hear the search- 
ing words of Paul : "It is high time to awake 
out of sleep : for now is our salvation [that is, 
the redemption and glorifying of our bodies at 



404 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

the Coming of the Lord] nearer than when we 
believed. 

"The night is far spent, the day is at hand : 
let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, 
and let us put on the armour of light. 

"Let us walk honestly, as in the day [the day 
of Christ] ; not in rioting and drunkenness, not 
in chambering and wantonness, not in strife 
and envying. 

"But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the 
lusts thereof." — Romans 13:11-14. 



THE PARLIAMENT OF 
NATIONS 

"And I stood upon the sand of the sea, 
and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having 
seven heads and ten horns, and upon his 
horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name 
of blasphemy. 

"And the beast which I saw was like unto 
a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a 
bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion; 
and the dragon gave him his power, and his 
seat [the world] and great authority. 

"And I saw one of his heads, as it were 
wounded to death ; and his deadly wound was 
healed: and all the world wondered after the 
beast. 

"And they worshiped the dragon which gave 
power unto the beast, saying, 'Who is like unto 
the beast? who is able to make war with him?' 
And there was given unto him a mouth speak- 
ing great things and blasphemies; and power 
was given unto him to continue forty and two 
months. 

"And he opened his mouth in blasphemy 
against God, to blaspheme his name, and his 
tabernacle, and (even) them that dwell in 
heaven. 



406 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

"And it was given unto him to make war 
with the saints, and to overcome them; and 
power was given him over all kindreds, and 
tongues, and nations. 

"And all that dwell upon the earth shall 
worship him, whose names are not written in 
the book of life of the Lamb slain from the 
foundation of the world." — Revelation, 13 : 1-8. 

The beast set forth in these verses is identical 
with the one seen in the seventh chapter of 
Daniel's prophecy. In that chapter he records 
the vision of four beasts which he sees rising 
up out of the sea. The first was like a lion, 
the second like a bear, the third a leopard, 
and the fourth, dreadful, terrible, unlike any 
of the others. It had great iron teeth, it 
devoured, broke in pieces, stamped with its 
feet, and had ten horns. Daniel tells us that 
this fourth beast is the fourth kingdom upon 
earth, and diverse from all kingdoms. The 
three preceding beasts are, therefore, king- 
doms. The vision in its totality gives us the 
picture of four great world empires. 

Previous to this vision, Daniel records the 
forgotten dream of Nebuchadnezzar, King of 
Babylon, and interprets it. The King saw, 
in his dream, a great image. The head was of 
gold, the arms and breasts of silver, the belly 
and thighs of brass, the legs of iron, and the 
toes, part of iron and part of clay. A stone 
cut out of the mountain without hands fell 
upon the feet of the image, broke it in pieces, 



: 



THE PARLIAMENT OF NATIONS 407 

and the fragments were swept away as the 
chaff of the summer's threshing floor, the stone 
becoming a great mountain, filling all the earth. 

This image, Daniel tells us, represents the 
course of four great kingdoms, each metal 
symbolizing a kingdom. As such it is evident 
that the four metal parts stand over against, 
and are equivalent to, the four beasts — each 
representing the other. The gold is a symbol 
identical in purport with the lion, the silver 
with the bear, the brass with the leopard, and 
the iron with the fourth beast, the beast that 
has the iron teeth and the ten horns. The 
golden head of the image is announced to be 
Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar is put for 
Babylon, the king standing for the kingdom — 
just as in Scripture the kingdom stands for 
a king. The gold of the image is thus the 
symbol of Babylon. As the gold is equivalent 
to the lion, the lion is, also, the symbol of 
Babylon ; it is the first kingdom. 

To find the identity of the second kingdom 
we turn to the eighth chapter and read 
Daniel's vision of the conflict between a ram 
and a he-goat. The ram is specifically de- 
clared to be the kingdom of Medo-Persia. In 
the fifth chapter we are introduced to a feast 
in the city of Babylon. The king and a thou- 
sand of his lords hold high revel in the bril- 
liantly lighted banquet hall, gleaming with gold 
and silver, and echoing with the song and laugh- 
ter of bacchanal mirth. Suddenly, an armless 



408 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

hand reached out of the night and wrote rapid- 
ly on the paneled wall strange, quivering char- 
acters that no one could read. None of the 
king's astrologers, sooth-sayers or wise men 
could interpret the meaning, and there was 
great consternation in the midst. Finally, 
Daniel the prophet is called in. He scans the 
writing. He interprets the message. He 
makes the startling announcement that God 
has weighed the king in his balances and 
found him wanting, and that the God, who 
raiseth up one and pulleth down another, has 
given his kingdom to the Medes and Persians. 
It is added in striking, sententious phrase: 

"That night was Belshazzar the king of the 
Chaldeans [Babylonians] slain, and Darius the 
Median [representative of Cyrus, king of Per- 
sia] took the kingdom." — Daniel, 5:30-31. 

Medo-Persia is the second kingdom. 

The symbols are: silver, a bear, and a ram. 

The he-goat of the eighth chapter overcomes 
the ram as it rushes westward from the east. 
The he-goat runs upon it, meets it at a river, 
throws it down and tramples it under foot. 
This he-goat is declared by the angel, who 
interprets the vision to Daniel, to be the king- 
dom of Greece. As the ram is the symbol 
of Medo-Persia, and is the second prophetic 
kingdom, then, clearly, 

Greece is the third kingdom. 

Its symbols are : brass, a leopard, and a he- 
goat. 



THE PARLIAMENT OF NATIONS 409 

To find the fourth kingdom we turn to the 
New Testament. The kingdom existing at 
that time was Rome. It existed as a world, or 
universal kingdom. There has been no uni- 
versal kingdom since that time. In the New 
Testament era it occupied the territory of the 
three preceding kingdoms. It held sway over 
all the countries once ruled by Babylon, Medo- 
Persia, and Greece. 

Rome, therefore, was the fourth kingdom. 

Thus we have, 
Babylon, 
Medo-Persia, 
Greece, 
Rome. 

The beast represented in Revelation is com- 
posite. 

It is like a leopard, it has the feet of a bear, 
and the mouth of a lion. Leopard, bear, and lion 
are the constituent elements of this compos- 
ite beast. As each of these elements represent 
successively, Greece, Medo-Persia, and Baby- 
lon, and this composite beast is a kingdom, 
then, plainly enough, you have a kingdom 
which is the successor of these three, and in- 
cludes them within its territory. It is a 
fourth kingdom including in its rule the terri- 
tory and the peoples of Babylon, Medo-Persia, 
and Greece. As Rome is that fourth kingdom, 
then this beast of Revelation is the fourth, 
or kingdom of Rome. 

John says that the ten horns of this compos- 



410 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

ite beast are kings, which, indeed, is evident 
from the crowns they wear. 

"The ten horns which thou sawest are ten 
kings."— Revelation, 17:12. 

With that statement in mind we go back 
to the prophecy in Daniel. 

Daniel writes that the ten horns on the fourth 
beast are ten kings. 

"The ten horns out of this kingdom [beasts] 
are ten kings." — Daniel, 7 :24. 

The identification with the beast of Revela- 
tion is emphasized. The image, which is a 
symbol of the four kingdoms, has ten toes. 
As the image is the equivalent of the four 
beast kingdoms, and the legs on which the 
ten toes are found are a symbol of the fourth 
kingdom; as the ten horns out of the fourth 
beast are ten kings, then the ten toes, as an 
equivalent symbol are, likewise, ten kings. That 
the ten toes are ten kings, is the inclusive 
statement of Daniel : 

"In the days of those kings." — Daniel, 2 :44. 

Daniel is referring to the division of the 
fourth kingdom. It will be broken up into 
elements that will make it partly strong and 
partly weak. These elements are the ten toes. 
It is on the ten toes that the stone is to fall and 
finally break the image, bringing in the fifth, 
the final, and everlasting kingdom of God. It 
is when these toes are smashed that the king- 
dom of the stone is set up; and, pointing to 
that moment of the fifth kingdom's inaugura- 



THE PARLIAMENT OF NATIONS 411 

tion, he says, "In the days of those kings/' 
and, therefore, in the days of those toes. 

The ten toes, then, are the ten kings. 

As the two legs represent the fourth king- 
dom, and the two legs are a division; as, 
further, each leg has five toes, and the toes 
are a division of each foot, we have a symbolic 
declaration that the fourth kingdom should be 
twice divided: first into two equal parts and, 
second, into ten. If we turn to history (which 
we might have done in the case of each of 
these kingdoms, and found amazing, detailed, 
and dramatic corroboration in the sequences 
of the kingdoms) if we turn to history here, 
we shall find that in A. D. 364., that is, nearly 
a thousand years after Daniel's prophecy, the 
fourth, or Roman empire, was divided between 
the brothers Valentinian and Valens into two 
great parts, known as the Western and East- 
ern Empire, the capitals, respectively, being at 
Rome and Constantinople. 

The second division, the division of the 
Western and the Eastern Empire into five 
kingdoms each, has never taken place. No 
such condition obtains today. The conclusion 
is evident — the division of the territory once 
occupied by Rome into ten kingdoms is yet 
future. In that time to come there will be 
five kingdoms in what was once known as the 
Western Empire, and five in what was known 
as the Eastern Empire. 

The beast in Revelation thirteenth is repre- 



412 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

sented as having seven heads. In the seven- 
teenth chapter these heads are called, first, 
mountains and then kings: 

"The seven heads are seven mountains * * * 
and there [these] are seven kings." — Revela- 
tion, 17:9, 10. 

Five of these kings have fallen, a sixth was 
living when John wrote. The seventh was to 
come. He should continue but a short space. 
He would disappear and then come forth as 
the eighth. To this eighth king the ten kings 
will give their suffrage. This eighth king be- 
comes the head over the ten kings. He is in 
the end an eleventh king, and thus the eighth 
head represents the whole beast with its seven 
heads and ten horns. 

Daniel declares that out of the ten horns 
of the fourth beast will arise an eleventh horn, 
and that this horn will exalt itself above the 
other horns — taking the place of lordship over 
them. 

The eleventh horn of Daniel and the eighth 
head of Revelation are identical. 

The prophetic meaning, then, of all these 
identified symbols is, that when the territory 
of ancient Rome is finally divided among ten 
kingdoms — the ten kings will elect over them 
one supreme king — a king of kings and lord 
of lords; that this supreme king will be the 
final Caesar of Rome. 

•Daniel indicates that this coming Caesar 
will arise in one of the four kingdoms into 



THE PARLIAMENT OF NATIONS 413 

which the third or Grecian kingdom was 
divided, 

"In the latter time of their kingdom * * * 
a king of fierce countenance * * * shall 
stand up * * * he shall stand up against 
the prince of princes." — Daniel, 8:23-25. 

The precise location out of which he arises 
is set before us in the title which is given 
him by the prophet Isaiah, "The Assyrian/' 
"The King of Babylon."— Isaiah, 14:25, 4. 

He will arise out of Babylon. 

Daniel gives him the title of the prince of 
Rome. 

He does it in this wise. He says: 

"The people of the prince that shall come 
shall destroy the city [ Jerusalem]. " — Daniel, 
9:26. 

Daniel here says two things: 

1. After the death of Messiah (Christ) 
a people should come and destroy Jerusalem. 
The people who destroyed Jerusalem were 
Romans. 

2. Out of this people, the Romans, there 
should arise a prince — the Coming Prince 
and, therefore, a prince of the Romans. The 
prince of the Romans is a prince of Rome. 

The prince of Rome is a Caesar. 

John says that one of the seven heads of 
the beast was wounded to death by a sword; 
his deadly wound was healed and all the world 
wondered after the beast. 

"I saw one of the heads, as it were wounded 



414 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

to death; and his deadly wound was healed: 
and all the world wondered after the beast." 
— Revelation, 13:3. 

The seventh head, according to Revelation 
seventeenth, continues but a short space. This 
seventh head is the one that is wounded to 
death. It comes to life again and reappears 
as the eighth head. This is resurrection — and 
eight is the Scripture number for resurrec- 
tion. 

It is because he is revealed as the man who 
has triumphed over death and the grave that 
all the world will wonder after him. 

Scripture paints a full portrait of him. 

He is an orator, holding the multitude by 
the witchery of his eloquence. He is a scien- 
tist, acquainted with nature's forces. He is 
an occultist, an adept in psychological myster- 
ies. He is a soldier, conquering nations. He 
is a builder of cities, rebuilding Babylon, mak- 
ing it the commercial and distributing center 
of the East. He becomes king of Babylon. 
He subdues the remaining three of the four 
kingdoms into which Greece was divided. His 
conquest brings him to the Bosphorus. All 
Europe trembles before him. The kings of 
Western Europe meet in conclave with the 
kings of the East. Together they form a 
congress of kings — a parliament of nations. 
They agree to elect this man as their federal 
head. They give him the title of Prince of 
Rome — the king of Rome. It is at this moment 






THE PARLIAMENT OF NATIONS 415 

when he is, apparently, slain to death, and 
rises again. 

His resurrection will be the theme of the 
world. 

It will be hailed as the glory of science, the 
perfection of human attainment, the demon- 
stration of evolution. 

His picture is complete. 

He will be a risen man — a king of kings — 
a lord of lords. 

He will throw off all disguise. He will 
deny the existence of God. He is "the fool 
who in his heart hath said there is no God." 
He will claim that man is the highest expression 
of nature's forces; that nature finds its per- 
sonality in man; that man is the supreme 
being in the universe; and as he (the beast) 
is easily supreme among men, that he is the 
supreme personality of the universe. 

Men will worship him. They will give him 
hero-worship. They will see in him the ulti- 
mate of their own humanity; reading in him 
the deity that belongs, in greater or less meas- 
ure (so they will say) to every man. In 
owning and glorifying him, they will glorify 
themselves. 

It will be the self-deification of humanity. 

It will be accepting the Devil's old lie : "Ye 
shall be as Gods." 

It will be the ringing out of the old, the 
ringing out of the true, the ringing in of the 
new, the ringing in of the false— "the Christ 



416 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

that is to be." The Christ of evolution and 
not the Christ of revelation. 

This man is foretold by Paul. 

"That man of sin * * * the son of 
perdition: who opposeth and exalteth himself 
above all that is called God, or that is wor- 
shiped; so that he as God sitteth in the 
temple of God, shewing himself that he is 
God." — II Thessalonians, 2:3-4. 

He is the man of whom our Lord said that 
he should come "in his own name." — John, 
5:43. 

He is the man of whom John speaks — the 
Antichrist. 

"He is the Antichrist, that denies the Father 
and the Son."— I. John, 2:22. 

This is the prophecy of the future: 

Within the limits of the old Roman empire 
there will be a parliament of the nations, an 
assembly of ten kings. Out of this parliament 
of the nations will come the man of sin — the 
Antichrist. 

Certain movements indicate that the world 
is getting ready for this parliament of nations. 

It has been proposed recently, and seriously, 
by leaders in the Turkish revolution, that a 
parliament of the great world powers be con- 
vened. " Each nation is to send its representa- 
tive king or governor. Constantinople, as 
being central to the West and the East, is 
suggested as the historic meeting place. These 
nations in representative assembly of kings 



THE PARLIAMENT OF NATIONS 417 

and governors, are to discuss the political 
suaation of the world, settle issues that may 
arise, and dictate a governmental policy that 
shall be universal. In the nature of the case 
such a congress of nations must be presided 
over. It has been suggested that one of the 
leading monarchs of Europe be invited to 
fill that role and take the headship of the 
parliament. 

Side by side with this is the suggestion, float- 
ing for some time as a rumor through Euro- 
pean journals, that ten of the strong nations 
of the world should form themselves into an 
alliance to regulate the commerce of the earth, 
and keep the peace. Emperor William has 
been named as the fitting head of this com- 
bination. 

The proposition from Turkey has been 
laughed at, and the rumor concerning the 
Kaiser and his ten allied nations has been of- 
ficially denied; but both of these suggestions 
are shadows of the coming event. As straws 
show the way of the wind, so these ideas blown 
out by the breath of men, proclaim the increas- 
ing consciousness that the world's peace and 
security demand a world-wide federation and 
unity. Along with these suggestions there 
is the hurried armament of the nations and 
their feverish preparation for war. This prep- 
aration must come to a climax — either uni- 
versal disarmament or universal clash. Uni- 
versal disarmament is impossible in the nature 



418 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

of things. It is impossible, because the Son 
of God has said that war will continue among 
men till he returns. He says there will be 
wars and rumors of wars, kingdom will rise 
against kingdom and nation against nation. 
Not till he comes to put down all rule and 
authority and reign as the Prince of Peace, will 
the nations cease from war. 

Out of this final conflict and crash of 
contending armies there must come a complete 
change in the present order of political distri- 
bution. The map of Europe and Asia will be 
entirely altered. There will be re-organization. 
This act of re-organization will fall into the 
hands of some supreme personal force. 

An effort is being made to counteract this 
tendency. An arbitration alliance has been 
formed. Eight nations have elected their rep- 
resentatives. A palace for the session of the 
delegates has been built. The propaganda of 
peace is making itself heard and felt. It has 
apostles and a literature. Everywhere men 
are crying peace. In proportion as the war 
preparation goes on, the cry for peace be- 
comes louder [as though it would drown the 
roll of drums, the shoutings of the captains, 
the word of command, and the tramp of 
armed men]. 

It is a tremendously startling thing that the 
apostle Paul should have warned the church 
that just before the cataclysmic close of 
this age, there would be this very propa- 



THE PARLIAMENT OF NATIONS 419 

ganda of peace ; and that it was to be an indi- 
cation that the church should at that very 
moment be on the threshold of the tumult and 
the tribulation which eventuate in the coming 
of the Lord, himself. 

He says: 

"When they shall say peace and safety : then 
sudden destruction cometh upon them." — I, 
Thessalonians, 5 :3. 

With this preparation for war and the antici- 
pative cry for peace is the significant fact, 
that the Jews in large numbers are returning 
to Palestine. Zionism is no longer a mere 
sentiment, it is becoming each day a mightier 
factor in the world's politics; and when it is 
remembered that one of the first acts of the 
revived Roman empire will be to throw the 
land of Palestine open to the Jews and recon- 
stitute the kingdom of Judah, it is evident that 
the outlines of coming events are casting their 
deepening shadows before. 

To those who think and reflect, it is a won- 
derful re-setting of the ancient scene. 

Look at it ! 

Rome — Caesar — Judea a protectorate of 
Rome. Judea once more paying tribute to 
Caesar. 

The stage set just as it was when the Son 
of God came into the world the first time. 

The special significance of these things to 
the Christian may be seen by reading the fol- 
lowing passage: 



420 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

"And he [the beast — the Roman Emperor — 
the Antichrist] opened his mouth in blasphemy 
against God, to blaspheme his name, and his 
tabernacle, and (even) them that dwell in 
heaven." — Revelation, 13 :6. 

The tabernacle of God is here said, accord- 
ing to the true reading, to be those who at this 
time are dwelling in heaven. The tabernacle 
of God is the church. It is the declaration, 
therefore, that at the time when this man, the 
Antichrist, is running his blasphemous course 
on earth, THE CHURCH WILL BE 
DWELLING IN HEAVEN. 

This is an illuminating and comforting as- 
surance. 

It is a clear demonstration that the church 
does not go through the Tribulation, and is 
a confirmative testimony to the faithfulness 
of the Lord's promise to the church at Phila- 
delphia : 

"I also will keep thee from the hour of 
temptation [the Tribulation] which shall come 
upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon 
the earth." — Revelation, 3:10. 

But it is the announcement of a great and 
imminent fact — the fact that before the church 
can dwell in heaven, it must be removed as a 
body from earth to heaven. The church is to 
be removed from earth to heaven as the bride 
of Christ. The bride can go only when the 
bridegroom comes for her. Christ is coming 
as the Bridegroom for his church. He will 



THE PARLIAMENT OF NATIONS 421 

come in an hour when "ye think not," and as 
a "thief in the night." The thief, as a rule, 
comes after midnight, in the hour of deepest 
darkness, and the time of heaviest sleep, comes 
softly, unexpectedly, suddenly, secretly. As 
a church we have passed the midnight hour, 
the cry has been sounded, "Go ye out to meet 
him." There is gross darkness upon the people, 
and it is the time of heavy sleep. Any moment 
the Bridegroom may come for those who are 
really his. 

This imminency is emphasized by the prep- 
aration for the parliament of nations. Every 
hammering sound of events which tells that 
the stage is being put together for the final 
and climacteric display of the world's sin and 
wickedness, is a terrific and faithful witness 
that the Coming of the Lord draweth nigh, 
that it is even now "at the doors," and should 
inspire us to be awake, alert, and ready, lest, 
coming suddenly, he find us asleep. 

AN ANALYSIS OF REVELATION 
THIRTEENTH. 

1. The beast is the symbol of the revived 
fourth, or Roman, empire, divided among ten 
kings, and heading itself up in the rulership 
and power of a final Caesar — the Antichrist. 
v:l. 

2. This final Caesar is called by the general 
kingdom name, "The Beast." Just as Nebu- 
chadnezzar stands for Babylon the kingdom, so 



422 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

the beast kingdom here, conversely, stands for 
the beast king — the Antichrist. The descrip- 
tion of the kingdom beast is intended to set 
forth in final analysis the king himself. 

3. This man is slain to death and rises 
again, thus imitating Christ as the risen man — 
as king of kings and lord of lords, v :3. 

4. The world is filled with wonder con- 
cerning him. 

They give him hero worship. In doing this 
they are worshiping — without knowing it— 
the dragon (the Devil himself.) 

5. He is the incarnation of the Devil. 
"Whose coming is after the working [the 

energy-power] of Satan.'' — II. Thessalonians, 
2:9. 

6. He wages war and becomes a universal 
conqueror. — v :4. 

7. He is a great orator, a blasphemer, an 
infidel. — v :5. 

8. He runs his blasphemous course for 
forty-two months. 

These are prophetic months. Prophetic 
months are lunar months — months of thirty 
days. There are three hundred and sixty days 
in a prophetic year. These forty-two months 
are twelve hundred and sixty days — three 
years and a half. 

9. He speaks in blasphemy against God. 
v:6. 

10. He blasphemes the tabernacle of God. 
v:6. 



THE PARLIAMENT OF NATIONS 423 

11. The tabernacle of God consists of those 
who dwell in the heavens. The heaven dwel- 
lers are seen in Revelation, 4:4: 

"And round about the throne were four and 
twenty seats (thrones) and upon the seats I 
saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in 
white raiment: and they had on their heads 
crowns of gold." 

These are kings and priests. 

Who these kings and priests are is described 
in Revelation, 5:8-10. 

"The four and twenty elders fell down be- 
fore the Lamb, having every one of them 
harps, and golden vials full of odors, which 
are the prayers of saints" (which prayers they 
present in the exercise of their priestly office. 
Notice here, and notice it well, the church 
presents the prayers of the saints — not the 
saints the prayers of the church.) 

"And they sung a new song, saying, Thou 
art worthy to take the book, and to open the 
seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast 
redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every 
kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; 
and hast made us unto our God kings and 
priests: and we shall reign on (over) the 
earth." 

These redeemed people are the church. 

The church then is the tabernacle of God in 
heaven. 

12. While the beast, the Antichrist, is run- 
ning his blasphemous course, the church, the 



424 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

tabernacle of God, will be in heaven, far above 
the tumult and the terror of the Tribulation. 
The church is translated to heaven at the 
secret coming of Christ — when he comes as 
the Bridegroom. 

13. The beast will persecute the saints 
(the believing ones on earth) after the transla- 
tion of the church; those among Jew and 
Gentile who believe the "Gospel of the King- 
dom," which will then be preached instead of 
as now, the Gospel of Grace. — v:7. 

14. He will rule over nations. — v:7. 

15. All who are not of the elect of God on 
earth will worship him — give him their allegi- 
ance.^ — v :8. 

16. The second beast is not Antichrist. 
He is the prime minister of Antichrist. 
The proof that he is not the Antichrist is 

in the fact that he leads the whole world to 
worship the first beast. He fills the same 
function that the Holy Spirit does in relation 
to Christ. The Holy Spirit is here not to speak 
of himself, but to lead men to faith and service 
in Christ. Just so, this second beast does not 
speak of himself; he does not seek to lead men 
to believe in himself, but the first beast, the 
head of the Roman empire. Antichrist, we 
are told on the absolute authority of the Son 
of God, will "come in his own name." That 
ought to settle it beyond all dispute. The sec- 
ond beast does not come in his own name, he 
comes in the name of the first beast. 



THE PARLIAMENT OF NATIONS 425 

He is an apostle of Antichrist. 

He is the Vicar of Antichrist. — v:12. 

17. He works miracles on behalf of the 
beast, the Antichrist. 

The apostle Paul tells us that the coming 
of Antichrist is with "all power and signs and 
lying wonders." — II. Thessalonians, 2:9. 

This power is exercised by his apostle and 
primate in his name. Just as the apostles of 
Christ did miracles in his name and by his 
spirit. 

18. He causes an image to be made to the 
beast. As of old men were called on to do 
homage to the image of the Roman Emperor. 

19. He has power to give life (breath) to 
the image so that it shall speak. — v:14. 

Already we have automata that can play 
games of chess (deceiving inventions), the 
phonograph registers the voice of the living 
and the dead, and the kinetoscope already 
gives the movement of life, and promises, in 
connection with the phonograph and dactylo- 
graphy to make the moving figures speak and 
act to the very life. (Coming events, let it be 
repeated, cast their shadows before). 

20. We learn that the beast, the Antichrist, 
was slain by a sword. It was a sword stroke, 
an assassin's blow, from which he recovered to 
the world's amazement. — v:14. 

21. This apostle of Antichrist causes all 
to be killed who will not bow down to the 
image of the first beast. — v:15. 



426 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

22. All must receive the mark of Antichrist 
in the right hand and on the forehead. That 
is, they must bring their work and their will 
in submission to the will of Antichrist. — v:16. 

23. No business can be carried on without 
the trade mark of Antichrist. He is the great 
"boss." 

The name of the beast is the "number of a 
man." The true reading is, not, a man, but, 
"the number of man," man considered as a 
whole. 

That number is, 6,6,6. — v:18. 

7 is the number of Christ. He always 
spoke in sevens and of sevens. 

7 is the number of fulness and, therefore, 
is the name of Christ; for, he is the fulness 
of the godhead bodily. — Colossians, 2:9. 

7 is the number of the Christian ; it is the 
number of completeness, and the Christian is 
said to be "complete" in Christ. — Colossians, 
2:10. 

6 is the number this side of 7. 

As 7 is fulness, completeness, perfection, 6 
is this side, or short of fulness, completeness, 
perfection. 

Man, as man, is not complete, he is not 
perfect, he falls short, as it is written: 

"For all have sinned and COME SHORT 
of the glory of God." — Romans, 3 : 23. 

3 is, as well as 8, the number of resurrection. 

Although this man, the Antichrist, professes 
a resurrection, he cannot attain unto the PER- 



THE PARLIAMENT OF NATIONS 427 

FECT MAN— he falls short; it is the doom 
of natural humanity, no matter how high and 
boastingly it may lift itself. 

3 is, also, the number of repetition. 

We make an effort once, we try again, and 
make a final effort. 

In spite of every effort this man fails at the 
last. 

The end of Christ, and man in Christ, is 
the throne of the universe. The end of Anti- 
christ, and man in union with Antichrist, is 
the Lake of fire. 

Man out of Christ is a present failure and 
a final ruin. 

Man in Christ is a present Son of God and — 
a future king and priest — in associated glory 
with Christ. 



THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT 

"And the ransomed of the Lord shall re- 
turn, and come to Zion with songs, and ever- 
lasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain 
joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing 
shall flee away." — Isaiah 35 : 10. 

'They shall ask their way to Zion with their 
faces thitherward." — Jeremiah 50: 5. 

After the flood, the people gathered them- 
selves together at Babel, and would build a 
tower. In judgment, the Lord confused their 
tongues and scattered them abroad, breaking 
them into ethnical fragments, or nations. He 
did so, because it was his purpose to form one 
supreme nation in the earth, a nation which 
should be the memorial of his unity and the 
witness of his righteousness. It was his pur- 
pose to send his Son to be their incarnate 
king and constitute them, through him, as 
channels of governmental and spiritual bless- 
ing to the world. To this end he scattered 
the people abroad and fixed their bounds in 
relation to the land of Palestine, ordaining 
that land to be the geographical and political 
center of the earth. 

He at once began the unfolding of his plan. 

He called Abraham out of Mesopotamia 
into Palestine — into the land of Canaan. He 



THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT 429 

covenanted to give the land to him and to his 
posterity for an everlasting possession. He 
promised him a son and, in due time, fulfilled 
the promise, giving him Isaac. When Isaac 
was arrived at manhood, he bade Abraham 
take him and sacrifice him upon Mount Mo- 
riah. Abraham obeyed, led his son to the 
mount, erected the altar, and the son stretched 
himself thereon. Abraham was about to slay 
him, in the faith that God would raise him 
from the dead, when the voice of God stayed 
his hand and the uplifted knife. A ram caught 
by its horns in a thicket was offered as a 
substitute. When Abraham raised his knife 
to give the blow, the boy was, in his mind, as 
good as dead. When his stroke was arrested 
and the young man raised from the altar alive, 
it was, indeed, as though he had been raised 
from the dead. It was a typical resurrection 
scene, and the suggestive outline of that ac- 
tual substitutionary death, and the very resur- 
rection from the dead, which took place cen- 
turies afterward on that very spot, when the 
eternal Son of God both died and rose again. 
In that typical resurrection hour God reaf- 
firmed his covenant with Abraham, assuring 
to him and to his posterity the land, and cove- 
nanting that in his seed (which seed was 
Christ — and of whom Isaac was the type) all 
the nations of the earth should be blessed. 

Isaac had two sons, Esau and Jacob. Jacob 
through subtlety (and yet in the providential 



430 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

plan of God) obtained the birthright and the 
blessing, setting forth the divine principle 
that it is always the second born, and never 
the first born, that gets the inheritance ("that 
was not first which is spiritual, but that which 
is natural: and afterward that which is spir- 
itual"). 

Jacob became the father of twelve sons. By 
reason of famine he and his sons were led 
to go down into Egypt. The twelve sons be- 
came the heads of the twelve tribes: these 
twelve tribes were called the Children of Is- 
rael — Israel being the name given of the Lord 
to Jacob in that earlier period of his life when, 
on the mountain height between the midnight 
and the morn, he wrestled with him, putting 
his thigh out of joint, but giving him the 
name because in the moment of physical de- 
feat Jacob became the spiritual victor, claim- 
ing, through faith, a blessing from the Lord; 
as a prince he had prevailed spiritually with 
the Lord, and was, henceforth, entitled to 
power with God and with man. 

In Egypt the Children of Israel multiplied 
into a nation and were held under bondage 
by Pharaoh. God sent Moses to deliver them 
and call them out in fulfilment of the covenant 
made with Abraham, with Isaac, and with 
Jacob. As a judgment upon Egypt the Lord 
pronounced sentence of death against all the 
first born in the land. Under inspiration from 
God, Moses instructed the people to take a 



THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT 431 

lamb, a firstling of the flock, without blemish, 
set it apart on the tenth day of the month, 
kill it in the evening of the fourteenth, sprinkle 
the blood on the two side posts and on the 
upper door post of the houses, then go in, 
shut the door, and remain till morning, shoes 
on the feet, loins girded, and staff in hand, 
but eating with haste of the slain lamb roast 
with fire, that they might be ready for the 
coming of the Lord at midnight, and be ready 
to go forth with him in the morning to the 
promised land. 

At midnight the angel of the Lord went 
through the land and smote the first born 
with death. Wherever he saw blood upon the 
house, he passed over (it was the Lord's Pass- 
over), knowing that the judgment of death 
had been met in the death of the substitute. 
In the morning there was one dead in every 
house. In the houses of the Egyptians there 
was wailing and anguish, because it was the 
death of their own first born. In the houses 
of the Israelites it was the first born, unblem- 
ished lamb, the ordained substitute, that was 
dead. 

Under Moses, and by the outstretched arm 
of the Lord, the people were led forth from 
the land of bondage, through the divided 
waters of the Red Sea, into the wilderness 
way, and then, as on eagles' wings, to the 
foot of Mount Sinai. There the people took 
themselves voluntarily from under the uncon- 



432 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

ditional Abrahamic covenant and placed them- 
selves under the conditional covenant of the 
Law. God would have taken them without 
any condition whatever, in fulfilment of his 
covenant promise to Abraham, directly into 
the promised land. The moment they an- 
nounced themselves capable in their own 
strength of doing all that the Lord required, 
he changed his manner of dealing with them, 
drew a line between himself and them, gave 
them the Law written on tables of stone, and 
added the ceremonial law. He gave them the 
ceremonial law that in the offerings and sac- 
rifices they might have a continual witness 
of the original sentence of death against them- 
selves, realize that their redemption was by 
blood, and that on the ground of blood shed- 
ding alone could they draw nigh unto God ; and 
that they might behold each day the outline of 
that coming spotless Person who should be the 
Lamb of God, bearing away the sin of the 
world — might behold him as their sacrificial 
redeemer and eternal king. 

Under the conditional covenant of the law 
they entered the land. They were to stay in 
that land so long as they fulfilled the condi- 
tions. They had gone in under the choral 
curses invoked on Ebal, curses invoked for 
failure in righteousness, or obedience to God. 
The antiphonal chorus of blessing from Geri- 
zim was never sung. They went in saying: 



THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT 433 

"Cursed be we if we fail to fulfill all we have 
promised unto God." 

And they failed ! 

They became weary of an unseen king, even 
though that king were the living Lord. They 
desired a king of flesh and blood like unto 
their neighbours. The Lord granted them 
their request. He gave them Saul in his an- 
ger and took him away in his wrath. He gave 
them David and built them up an exceedingly 
great nation, climaxing their glory and great- 
ness in his son Solomon. Under Solomon's 
son, Jeroboam, ten tribes revolted against Solo- 
mon's successor, Rehoboam, and went into 
Samaria, there establishing themselves as the 
Northern kingdom, setting up images and be- 
coming an idolatrous people. God sent the 
Assyrians against them. They carried away 
the people as captives. For twenty-five hun- 
dred years their identity has been lost and 
they have been known and spoken of in his- 
tory as "the ten lost tribes." 

The remaining two tribes, Judah and Ben- 
jamin, because of their iniquity, were carried 
away by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Baby- 
lon. At the end of seventy years, as had been 
foretold by Jeremiah, the prophet, thev were 
permitted to return and rebuild Jerusalem and 
the temple. By the hand of one conqueror 
and another they were ruled, till Rome set her 
imperial eagles above the royal standard of 
Judah. 



434 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

In the fulness of time, and before a law- 
giver had departed from between the knees 
of Judah, the eternal Son of God took of the 
substance of a woman and was born under 
the law, that he might redeem them that were 
under the law (even Israel). Wise men from 
the East came seeking him as one born king 
of the Jews, and fell at his feet, giving him 
of their gifts — worshipping him as Lord as 
well as king. 

At the exact moment foretold by the angel 
Gabriel to Daniel, the Lord Jesus Christ, the 
incarnate Son of God, son of Abraham and 
son of David — heir of the land and covenant 
heir of the throne — rode into Jerusalem amid 
the plaudits of the people, proclaiming him 
king of Israel and son of David, and presented 
himself to the nation, officially, as their king. 
Judas, one of the twelve disciples, betrayed 
him to the Jewish Sanhedrim. He was ar- 
rested, tried and condemned as a blasphemer. 
Because they had no jurisdiction in the case 
of death, the Sanhedrim handed him over to 
Pilate, the Roman governor, on the charge of 
sedition and conspiracy against Rome. Pilate 
would have let him go free, had he consulted 
his own feelings, but political consideration 
swung the balance against personal sentiment. 
Jesus was given into the hands of the execu- 
tioner and crucified to death, while over him 
was nailed the superscription of his accusa- 
tion, that he was the King of the Jews, 



THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT 435 

Nothing saved the apostate nation from im- 
mediate and total destruction but the interces- 
sary prayer of the divine victim, "Father, for- 
give them ; for they know not what they do." 
The Apostle Paul corroborates the fact of 
their blindness and ignorance. He says : 

"Had they known it, they would not have 
crucified the Lord of glory." — I. Corinthians 
2: 8. 

In crucifying the Son of God they were 
guilty of manslaughter. 

When, of old, an Israelite was cutting wood 
and the axe, slipping from the helve, killed a 
neighbour, he was forced to flee along the 
prepared highway to the nearest city, called 
a city of refuge. He was obliged to do this 
because the nearest kin to the slain man must 
act at once as the avenger of blood, leap upon 
the track of the fleeing man, overtake him if 
he could, and slay him, thus obtaining satis- 
faction for the deed according to the law 
(never yet repealed — a law existing before 
that of Sinai), "whoso sheddeth man's blood, 
by man shall his blood be shed." 

By his unintentional act the manslayer lost 
his home, and if he reached the city in safety, 
must stay there till one high priest died and 
another came. 

Like the manslayer, the Jew ignorantly slew 
the Lord Jesus Christ Nevertheless, the doom 
of the manslayer overtook him. He lost his 
home. He expelled the Lord Jesus Christ 



436 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

from the home that was his. The Lord caused 
him, likewise, to be expelled from the land. 
Forty years later, the Romans under Titus 
came, took the city of Jerusalem after a siege 
in which hundreds of thousands are said to 
have perished, destroyed the houses, took the 
remaining inhabitants away, and drew a 
ploughshare over the hill of Zion as a witness 
that it had ceased to be a city, and, unknown 
to the haughty Roman himself, as a witness 
that the word of the prophet foretelling that 
Zion should be as a ploughed field, had been 
fulfilled to the letter. The Jews exiled their 
king and would not have him to rule over them 
as a nation; they became, themselves, exiles 
among the nations. For two thousand years 
they have lived in borrowed homes. No mat- 
ter where they may be born or how much they 
attempt to identify themselves with the land 
of their birth, they bear upon them the mark 
and stamp of the alien. For three years and 
a half their king walked through the earth 
as a man of sorrows and acquainted with 
grief. For two thousand years they have 
been a nation of sorrows and experts in grief. 
As a nation they crucified their king and the 
nations have crucified them. For two thou- 
sand years their history has been written in 
blood and tears. They have been rejected and 
despised of men. In the hall of the Sanhedrim, 
in the barracks of Herod, before Pontius Pi- 
late, on the way to Calvary and, at last, on 



THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT 437 

the cross, Jesus was mocked, jibed at, and 
spurned. For two thousand years the Jews 
have been the butt, the jibe, the mockery, the 
scorn and contempt of the Gentile world. They 
have been more than laughed at, more than 
mocked. They have been the objects of a 
persecution unparalleled. They have been 
whipped, beaten with rods, stoned, imprisoned, 
robbed, and burned alive. The men have been 
enslaved, the women ruthlessly ravished, and 
the children destroyed. They have been 
thrown into wells, sent to sea in rotten ships, 
flayed alive, tortured, hunted as wild beasts 
are hunted, and their lives prolonged in agony 
till death has become a benediction. For cen- 
turies whoever robbed or killed a Jew felt 
that he did God service. They were not al- 
lowed to own a rood of land, nor testify in 
court, and, in some places, were charged the 
toll weight over a bridge as though they had 
been a herd of cattle or a flock of sheep. Be- 
cause they had no recourse; because all men 
were their enemies, and every hand against 
them, their character responded to the times 
and its usage. Unable to defend themselves 
with arms, they seemed to fawn, to yield, took 
advantage of their foes, cheated when they 
could, and lied themselves out of threatened 
danger. These were their only weapons of de- 
fence, and when caught in the attempt to so 
defend themselves against the assaults of their 
Gentile aggressors, they were smitten and perse- 



438 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

cuted a thousandfold — each characteristic of 
apparent duplicity justifying the Gentile in 
his murderous attack. 

God used the Gentile nations as his rods 
wherewith to correct his disobedient people; 
at the same time, he warned these nations that 
while he would not make a full end of the 
Jews, he would make a full end of them. 

He has kept, and is keeping, his twofold 
promise. 

He has laid his hand on the nations that 
persecuted them. No nation has touched them 
and not paid the penalty in sorrow, in suffer- 
ing, or national shame. Rome, which cruci- 
fied the Lord, destroyed Jerusalem, and en- 
slaved the people, has passed away, and only 
the mournful ruins of the Palatine remain to 
suggest the splendors of the once proud 
Caesars. The arch of Titus still crowns the 
Velian hill, and the sculptured procession of 
the captive Jews may yet be seen thereon, but 
the forum through which these captive Jews 
once passed with downcast eyes and laggard 
steps of pain is a wilderness of fallen columns, 
of ruined temples and forgotten triumphs. 
France, where the hand of persecution was 
once cruel enough to bury helpless Jews alive, 
has lost Alsace and Lorraine. Spain, whose 
Catholic Philip sent thousands of trembling 
Jews to sea in sinking ships, has lost the last 
pearl amid the jewels of her American posses- 
sions, and was forced, at the cannon's mouth, 



THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT 439 

to sell the very islands named after that Philip 
who loaded his soul with the weight of in- 
famy by reason of Jewish deaths. Russia, 
where the Jews were shot down in the streets 
of cities, hung and quartered and exposed in 
stalls of butcher shops as so many beeves, went 
down in humiliation, shame, and unspeakable 
horror of defeat, before the armies of pagan 
Japan. 

The Lord has said that Israel is as the apple 
of his eye, and that whosoever, therefore, 
touches a Jew touches him. 

The sorrow of every nation that has ever 
persecuted the Jew is the solemn witness to 
the truth thereof. 

But a full end has not been made of the Jew ! 

Far from it ! 

In spite of the sorrow, the suffering, the 
unreportable persecution, the Jew has lived, 
has thrived, until to-day there are at least 
twelve millions of them in the world — four 
times as many as those who crossed the Red 
Sea under Moses ; and these, but a sixth part 
of the whole nation, consisting only of the 
tribes of Judah and Benjamin. 

Their suffering upon the one side, and their 
amazing preservation upon the other, are wit- 
nesses that God is behind it all. To admit that 
they have been miraculously preserved (and 
who can evidentially deny it?) is to admit 
that the same hand which has restrained, must 
be the same hand that has permitted, the suf- 



440 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

fering. Nor need we have any doubt or guess 
about the matter. Page after page of Holy 
Writ is filled with the threatenings of the 
Lord. Again and again he forewarns of the 
very experience through which they since have 
passed. It is only necessary to change the 
future tense in which the prophecies have 
been written to the present tense to read their 
actual history in the light of to-day. It is 
the Lord who has permitted them to suffer ; it 
is the Lord who has preserved them. They 
have been persecuted and have suffered in 
final cause because they have been absent from 
their native land. 

They have been a nation out of place. 

Let a man stand in a crowd and be neither 
going nor coming, he will soon be jostled 
and pushed, whirled and turned about, and 
more or less maltreated, because he is 
out of place, he is in everybody's way. 
Just so, the Jew anywhere else than 
in Palestine, and in national relationship, 
is out of place. He is in everybody's 
way, and has been elbowed and jostled, whirled 
about, hurt, and maltreated by the thronging 
nations. 

Suppose, however, the Jews were, to-day, 
in their own land ; suppose they had an up-to- 
date army of five hundred thousand perfectly 
equipped men, and a navy of Dreadnaughts 
to match, an exchequer full of convertible 
values; let it be supposed that Jerusalem was 



THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT 441 

(as it well may be) a great railway and com- 
mercial center, and that in it was the concen- 
trated wealth of modern Jewry, and all the 
Gentile wealth that is dependent upon it, does 
any one imagine for a moment that the na- 
tions of the Gentiles would turn upon, despise 
or maltreat them ? Would not a Jew, a single 
Jew, win, nationally speaking, the same re> 
spect and attention as an Englishman, a Ger- 
man, or an American? Would not the con- 
sciousness that behind the individual Jew there 
was a vital and fully equipped nationality give 
emphasis to the individual expression of it? 

This is the Jew's need of the hour. , 

He needs to go back to his own land, go 
there in national capacity, and take his place 
amid the political and commercial powers of 
the earth. Not till the Jewish nation is such, 
not till there is a Jewish national resurrection, 
and the Jewish nation once more possesses 
the land sworn to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, 
will the Jew be able to lift up his head and 
walk in the ordained power that is his. 

God has declared that this need shall be 
met. 

He has declared that the Jews shall go back 
to their own land — that Israel shall be restored 
to Palestine. The promises of this restoration 
form almost the staple of the prophetic utter- 
ances. The Word of God is crowded with 
them. In every form of statement, typical, 
figurative, poetic, symbolic, open and didactic, 



442 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

does the living God proclaim, by sworn oath, 
by solemn pledge, upon the stake of his own 
integrity, that his people shall yet dwell in 
the land of their inheritance. To transcribe 
these promises would be almost to fill a book. 
They are there. So great is God's determina- 
tion to restore them that he says he will do 
it with "his whole heart." He declares that 
they are written upon the palms of his hands, 
and that he cannot forget them. He assures 
them that he will bring them back, plant them 
in their own land, and never allow them any 
more to be plucked out of it forever. So in- 
terested is he in this stupendous event that he 
gives the prophet Ezekiel a vision of a valley 
full of dry bones. He assures the prophet 
that these bones shall live ; dry and seemingly 
withered as they are, he assures him that they 
shall live. He bids him to prophecy upon 
these bones and assure them that the Lord 
God will cause breath to enter into them and 
that they shall live. God says he will lay 
sinews upon these bones and bring flesh upon 
them; he will cover them with skin and put 
breath in them, and they shall live. 

The prophet does as he is commanded of 
the Lord, and, as he prophesies, hears a great 
noise, there is a great shaking, bones come 
together, bone to his bone. The Lord then 
commands the prophet to speak to the wind, 
bidding breath to come from the four winds 
and breathe upon the slain. The prophet again 



THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT 443 

obeys, breath comes into them, they live and 
stand upon their feet, an exceeding great 
army. 

The Lord explains this vision to EzekieL 

He says: 

"These bones are the whole house of Israel : 
behold they say, Our bones are dried, and our 
hope is lost; we are cut off for our parts. 

Therefore prophesy, and say unto them, 
Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, O my peo- 
ple, I will open your graves [the nations and 
countries where they are nationally buried] 
and cause you to come up out of your graves, 
and bring you into the land of Israel. 

And ye shall know that I am the Lord when 
I have opened your graves, O my people, and 
brought you up out of your graves, 

And shall put my Spirit in you, and ye shall 
live; and I shall place you in your own land; 
then shall ye know that I the Lord have 
spoken it, saith the Lord. 

The word of the Lord again came unto me, 
saying, 

Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one 
stick, and write upon it, for Judah, and for 
the children of Israel his companions: then 
take another stick, and write upon it, for Jo- 
seph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the 
house of Israel and his companions: 

And join them one to another into one stick; 
and they shall become one in thine hand. 

And when the children of thy people shall 



444 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew 
us what thou meanest by these ? 

Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God, 
Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which 
is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of 
Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, 
even with the stick of Judah, and make them 
one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand. 

And the sticks whereon thou writest shall 
be in thine hand before their eyes. 

And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord 
God, Behold, I will take the children of Israel 
from among the heathen [the Gentile nations] 
whither they be gone, and will gather them 
on every side, and bring them into their own 
land: 

And I will make them one nation in the 
land upon the mountains of Israel; and one 
king shall be king to them all; and they shall 
be no more two nations, neither shall they be 
divided into two kingdoms, any more at all." — 
Ezekiel 37: 1-22. 

He has given signs of the coming restora- 
tion. 

He uses the symbol of a fig tree. 

He says, (and it is our Lord Jesus Christ! 
who speaks) : 

"Now learn a parable from the fig tree ; 
when his branch is yet tender, and putteth 
forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh/' — 
Matthew 24 : 32. 

The fig tree is, of course, the Jewish Nation. 



THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT 445 

There is a time to come, according to this 
parable, when the Jewish nation shall begin, 
like the tender branch of the fig tree, to show 
signs of life and vitality. It will begin to 
put forth leaves. There will be a marked 
indication that the winter of death and desola- 
tion is passed forever; that the summer time 
of life, of fruit and harvest, is at hand. 

This renewal of life, and this universal man- 
ifestation of national vigor, are in evidence 
every day. 

In our great commercial cities the Jews are 
the leading business factors. If you will pass 
down New York's great street of Broadway 
you shall find that two-thirds of the names 
upon the signs are Jewish names. One out 
of every four persons on Manhattan Island 
is a Jew — and is there because, in one way or 
another, related to business. If you call over 
the list of bankers in the world at large, you 
will find that the large majority of them are 
Jews. The leading musicians of the world 
have been, and to-day are, Jews. They are 
leaders in science and philosophy. They are 
historians, romancers, poets and tragedians. 
The two greatest women tragedians the world 
has ever known were Jewesses. They have 
been generals and statesmen. Napoleon's 
great marshal, Massena, the "child of vic- 
tory," was a Jew. England's prime minister, 
the man who at Berlin gave her "peace with 
honor," was a Jew, His very name is a token ; 



446 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

Benjamin D'Israeli — Benjamin of Israel. If 
to-day you were to call over the representative 
names in all departments of human genius and 
industry, you would find that a vast number 
of them are the names of Jews. The Jew is 
coming to the front along all the masterful 
lines of life. He has a polyglot tongue. If 
you seek the man who speaks in many lan- 
guages besides his own, you will find him in 
a Jew. He is entering into the political as 
well as the business arena. Alfred Dreyfus, 
a Jew, a soldier in the French army, was un- 
justly condemned by the French government. 
The Jews of the world got together, put their 
hands upon the assets of France, entered into 
the legislative halls and said: "Bring that 
man back from Devil's Island, give him a new 
trial, declare him innocent, reinstate and honor 
him." France heard the demand and did as 
she was bidden, even at the peril of a revolu- 
tion and a divided country. 

The Jew did that, the Jew of the twentieth 
century. 

He has an almost insane thirst for knowl- 
edge. 

The night schools in the great cities are 
filled with Jews. Some of our great universi- 
ties are crowded with them. The first Rhodes' 
scholarship was captured by a Jew. They 
seek knowledge because it is the high road 
to power. Obeying a mighty impulse they 
do not understand, they are seeking for power, 



THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT 447 

and seeking it in every direction. There is 
a mysterious, unseen impetus that drives them 
on. 

The vitality of the Jew is phenomenal. 

Any other people, enduring what they have 
endured, would have been wiped off the face 
of the earth. Persecution only seems to in- 
tensify their stamina. 

They are, as already stated, numbered by 
millions. 

Their health is a marvel. They are able to 
exist under all conditions. They are the best 
insurance risk among the nations. The men 
are extraordinarily vigorous, the women are 
wondrously fruitful, the children abundant. 

The Jewish nation, like the fig tree, is put- 
ting forth its leaves ; it is getting ready to bud, 
to blossom and fill the face of the world with 
fruit. 

The summer, surely, is nigh. 

There is another sign of restoration, and 
that is: 

The physical condition of Palestine. 

The people would not honor the Lord's Sab- 
baths, nor walk in his statutes. For this, he 
said he would cast them forth to the uttermost 
parts of the earth; and while they wandered 
amid all nations, the people of the trembling 
heart and the restless foot, the land should 
keep her Sabbaths. 

For centuries the soil has been uncultivated. 
The vine and the olive have cast their fruit, 



448 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

flung down their foliage, and fertilized the 
soil. 

Wild flowers and grasses have clothed the 
barren rocks ; the desert has blossomed as the 
rose. 

The very dust has been quickened by the 
mould of ages. 

Armies have fought upon its plains and the 
blood of man and beast bursts forth in the 
beauty of its scarlet poppies. For twenty 
centuries it has been lying a virgin earth under 
the fierce caress of an ardent sun and the breath 
of Orient winds. The grapes hang purple 
in the western light, the olives grow dusky 
green in the slant of the sun; apricot, pome- 
granate and orange give forth their blossoms 
to the wooing air, harvests lie golden under 
the noontide haze. In every fold of its mys- 
terious mountains, the snow-hooded heights 
of Hermon and the darkling blue of Tabor; 
in every crease of its lonely valleys, pool-filled 
Baca and smoke-laden Tophet; in every bed 
of its deepening streams, by the shores of blue 
Galilee and Jordan's banks, in rock and river, 
where the dead lie buried and the living toil 
and die, the land, full of wonder and the 
witchery of buried ages, where the ghosts of 
old days and the footsteps of prophet, priest 
and king go by together; the land where the 
rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley still 
bloom, where Bethlehem's roofs still shine 
white as in the days of the Incarnation, where 



THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT 449 

Calvary still remains the place of the skull, 
where the shadow of the cross seems to grow 
crimson in the dying of the day, there, where 
the feet of the infinite Son of God walked in 
their weariness, and his voice was heard as 
never man spake before, or since, in that land 
of lands, everything is waiting, palpitating, 
and ready to respond, with beating breast of 
fruitfulness, to the husbandman's touch and 
toil, to the worshipper's bended knee and as- 
cending prayer. 

There is another sign, and this, too, in rela- 
tion to the land. 

That sign is the latter rain. 

The Lord promised that when his people 
should turn their faces thitherward the latter 
rain so long withheld should be given them 
again. 

The latter rain has commenced to fall. 

Heaven is pouring sunshine, dew, and this 
precious rain, upon the awakening land. God 
is preparing it for the harvest home of those 
who shall return. 

In that land are great stone cities. 

These cities are in a state of wondrous 
preservation — a touch here and there, and the 
houses would be habitable. 

For two thousand years they have been 
empty, save for the wild beast and the night 
bird that would make her nest there. 

Silence and desolation have been the senti- 
nels. 



450 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

The cities have been waiting for their in- 
habitants. 

The houses are ready to resound to the 
voices of men and women, to the songs of 
bride and bridegroom, and the laughter of 
children. 

The streets, with here and there a gleam of 
paving stone, look up through moss and lichen, 
ready to welcome the rhythmic tread of the 
hurrying multitude. 

The Word of God declares that before the 
final and distinctive restoration, great num- 
bers of the Jews will return, go back as colo- 
nists, as speculators, and that land shall be 
bought and sold at the gates of Jerusalem. 

That prophecy is being fulfilled to-day. 

There are more Jews in Palestine than at 
any time since our Lord was crucified. Land 
is being bought and sold on speculation at the 
very doors of the city. Colonists have taken 
up land in the old, historic places, and are 
farming, by means of modern machinery, with 
satisfying success. 

The climacteric sign of the restoration is 
with us to-day. 

That sign is the organized movement known 
as — Zionism. 

Zionism is a movement on the part of the 
Jews throughout the world to go back to Pal- 
estine and reconstitute themselves as a nation, 
rebuilding Jerusalem, erecting the temple, and 
restoring the faith of the fathers. The move- 



THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT 

ment is no longer detached, or merely senti- 
mental. It is organized, corporate and univer- 
sal. Branches, committees and headquarters 
are established all over the earth. It has its 
literature and an oral advocacy. Men are 
writing and speaking in its behalf. Children 
are taught to repeat the word Zion as never 
before, and to set their faces thitherward. 
Moneys are raised, colonies are sent out, es- 
tablished and sustained. Multitudes of Jews 
among all nations, peoples, kindreds and 
tongues, are mentally asking their way to Zion 
and are setting their faces "thitherward." 

It is a movement that can neither be denied 
nor ignored. 

It is making itself known with increasing 
volume of assertion and assurance. 

Blind, utterly blind, even to the word of 
the prophets, blind to the full meaning of the 
movement itself, impulsed by natural and 
selfish motives, whether national or individual, 
there are thousands of Jews to-day who, in 
attitude if not in actual fact, are homeward 
bound, and are repeating softly to themselves 
the magic word, "Zion." 

The recent revolution in Turkey has accel- 
erated the movement. The ban upon the Jew 
has been removed. He is now invited to be- 
come a citizen. The doors of the Turkish 
Parliament stand open, the day of Jewish citi- 
zenship in their own land is made possible. 
Already, representative and wealthy Jews may 



452 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

be found standing in the shadow of the Sub- 
lime Porte. Jewish synagogues are planned 
for the hill of Zion. By day and by night there 
are here and there devout Jews who are study- 
ing the plans of the temple laid down by the 
prophet Ezekiel, plans so wonderful that Sir 
Inigo Jones, the great English architect, has 
said that if the temple were really built along 
its lines it would, indeed, fill the whole earth 
with its glory — putting to shame the half- 
remembered splendors of ancient times. 

Zion and Zionism are in the air. 

All these things are verifications of the 
Word of God. Every accent is a witness that 
God speaketh the truth and that his Word is 
settled in heaven forever. 

But this Zionist movement is a witness that 
the Coming of the Lord to rule and reign as 
king is not far away. Holy Scripture teaches 
in plain and unmistakable language that the 
Jews are to return to their own land, as many 
are doing now, in a state of unbelief and athe- 
istic godlessness. The scriptures testify that 
the nations of Europe, and some in Asia, will 
be unified under a great and final head, known 
in Holy Writ as the Antichrist, the Man of 
sin and the Beast, but hailed in the political 
world as the Coming Man, the arbiter of na- 
tions, the maker and keeper of peace, the 
world's accepted king of kings and prince of 
peace. The scriptures teach that this man will 
6e the prime factor in bringing the Jews back, 



THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT 453 

as a body, into their own land; that he will 
be the power that shall make Zionism a suc- 
cess; that through him the nationalism of the 
Jews shall be accomplished. He will make 
treaties with them, sustain them, be to them 
as though he were the very Messiah, the 
Christ, receiving from them support and ac- 
clamation. At the last he shall trample all 
his treaties with them under foot, rob them, 
spoil them, and put them into a furnace blast 
of persecution unparalleled by anything that 
has gone before ; a time of tribulation, a tribu- 
lation which our Lord defines as "the tribula- 
tion, the great one," and concerning which he 
says, the like of it has never been before, nor 
ever can be again ; a stress and durance spoken 
of by Jeremiah specifically as the time of 
"Jacob's Trouble" ; a sorrow and horror, and 
down sweep of pain and tragedy so great that, 
unless the Lord, we are told, should shorten 
the trial, no flesh could live, actually could 
exist. 

This man, the world's great Coming Man, 
the pre-eminent persecutor of the Jews, will 
fill Jerusalem with anguish, enthrone himself 
on the necks of the Jews, direct his hatred and 
wickedness with unlimited vengeance, particu- 
larly against the remnant of Jews who shall, 
under the faithful preaching of divinely sent 
messengers, turn their faces towards the true 
Messiah of Israel, and beseech him to appear 
unto them. It is in the midst of this woe* and 



454 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

in answer to the despairing cry of the rem- 
nant, that the Lord will descend from heaven 
in the panoply of his power and glory; then 
it is that repentant and sore-smitten Judah 
shall turn to him and own their crucified Lord 
at last. 

This Zionistic movement, its antecedents 
and accessories, are clear evidence that the 
time of Jacob's sorrow and the hour of the 
Lord's appearing are drawing nigh. 

But the Zionist movement is, in itself, the 
quickening and warning sign of a more im- 
mediate event. 

It is a sign that the secret rapture of the 
church is, indeed, imminent. Scripture 
teaches, and teaches it in figure, in type, in 
symbol, parable, and open statement, that be- 
fore the Lord appears in glory to end Gentile 
rule, and bring in the rule of Israel according 
to the Abrahamic covenant, he will come se- 
cretly, without warning, into the air (He will 
come into the air and halt there, before he 
comes down to the Mount of Olives), and with 
a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and 
the trump of God, snatch his church (the 
dead raised, the living changed) out of the 
world, and from the way of the coming woe, 
and gather her to himself as the bridegroom 
receives his long awaited bride. 

By so much, then, as the Zionist movement 
is a climacteric sign and witness in these times 
that the day of the Lord is at hand, by just 



THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT 455 

so much it is a witness that "at any moment" 
the "door in heaven" may be opened, the Lord 
may speak, and all those who own his name 
be bidden to rise and meet him, see him face 
to face, and share his glory. 

This is the deeper meaning of Zionism. 

Every footstep Zionward, every face set 
"thitherward." every accent and song that re- 
peats the name of Zion, should be a warning 
and an exhortation to the church, to the indi- 
vidual Christian, to watch, to wait and, with 
uplifted foot on the threshold of any circum- 
stance, be ready, as though the Master had 
already said, "Come up hither." 

"For ye know neither the day nor the hour 
wherein the Son of man cometh." — Matthew 
25:13. 



3477-0 



UBRARV 



